Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Science, Culture, & Humanities => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on February 21, 2007, 09:43:15 AM
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All:
On the nearby "Epidemics" thread, SB Mig has a good post today that, inter alia, brings up the survivalist issues that could arise during a epidemic such as having to hunker down in one's home for an extended stretch.
As an Angeleno, such questions have been on my radar screen for a while due to the plethora of possibilities for pandemonium in the greater Los Angeles region-- earthquake, brushfire, terrorism, mass breakdown of social order (think of the Rodney King riots), shut off of water to LA etc. An epidemic is simply one more SHTF scenario for us. Being snowed in might be one for other parts of the country.
Anyway, this thread is for asking questions and sharing tips about being able to hunker down at home for an extended stretch.
I'll kick things off:
We have a large generator. At a hardware store it probably would have cost over $800 but at Costco we were able to get it for under $400. We have 15 gallons of gasoline. We start up the generator about twice a year to make sure all is well.
I am looking into solar packs for cell phones and lap top computers
We have somewhere between 25 and 50 gallons of water.
I am not clear on how many days of food that does not require cooking that we have-- but I should be.
The house has suitable levels of firepower for social disorder as well.
TAC,
Marc
PS: I see SB Mig has just added this to his post: http://www.slate.com/id/2148772/sidebar/2149226/ent/2148778/
It looks very useful-- thanks SB!
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In light of recent events (9/11 to Katrina) I find it extremely important to be prepared for any eventuality. My wife and I had an interesting conversation with a good friend who happens to be a fireman. In his words, "Don't count on any help in case of a major disaster. You WILL be on your own for AT LEAST 72 hours." And that is in our small city of 100,000.
One of the first steps in putting together an emergency plan is tracking down good information. Fortunately, in today's internet world, this is easy to come by. Just a few links:
http://www.redcross.org/services/prepare/0,1082,0_239_,00.html
http://www.ready.gov/america/makeaplan/index.html
http://lds.about.com/od/preparednessfoodstorage/Food_Storage_and_Emergency_Preparedness.htm
www.galls.com (all types of great gear)
At the very minimum, you should have enough food and water to last 72 hours (3 Days). Post-Katrina, my wife and I increased that to 10 days. IMHO it is better to have too much food than not enough. An extra couple of cans of food/dry goods with each shopping trip can take care of this very quickly. We just rotate it out every few months.
After food and water, a feasible emergency plan is necessary. Out of town contacts are a must, as is a meeting place in case your own house is damaged/inaccessible. We have a group of like-minded friends who will try to meet in case of catastrophic disaster to form a small, defense-minded unit (safety in numbers). Good communication with neighbors is also key.
Some of the items in our house:
25-50 gallons of water (dispersed thoughout the house for easy access)
Dry/canned food for 10 days
Basic 72 hour emergency kit (available just about everywhere)
Batteries and battery powered devices (flashlights, radios, camping lights)
Camping stove and fuel
First aid kits
Copies of necessary documents/cash/extra keys (kept in emergency kit)
Basic camping gear (tent/sleeping bags)
Changes of clothes and sturdy shoes
Our cars contain:
Case of water (easy purchase at COSTCO or Trader Joes)
Mini emergency kit
First aid kit
Change of clotes and sturdy shoes
My office:
Case of water
First aid kit
Emergency kit
A trip to the local firehouse is also beneficial. They may have an area map that shows you local fault lines, flood zones, etc. As it stands, we are located between two fault lines and are about 10 feet underwater should a tsunami occur.
I would love to get input/info/tips from others in the forum!
Miguel
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These URLs come recommended:
http://www.fema.gov/areyouready/
http://www.fema.gov/areyouready/basic_preparedness.shtm
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/areyouready/...eparedness.pdf
http://www.prepare.org/
http://columbus.redcross.org/guide.html
http://oc-redcross.org/show.aspx?mi=4500
http://www.glennbeck.com/news/05092007.shtml
http://www.nitro-pak.com/index.php?o...45f4e67eeae08a
http://www.safetycentral.com/http://www.nitro-pak.com/
http://www.lifesecure.com/
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Salutations everyone.
This subject is often discussed in detail between myself and a coworker. We share the common ideal of wanting to survive through unforeseen events, from something as simple as the common flu to much more threatening circumstances. An excellent source of information can be found with Ron Hood's gang at:
www.survival.com
In particular, he has a series available called the Urban Master, which outlines survival in the cities and 'burbs when staying put in the home is paramount. If you are looking for a DVD on the subject which has plenty of sterling info, this is one I'd recommend highly.
Hope this helps!
:mrgreen:
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Hi Guys,
Great stuff so far. As a survivor of a few hurricanes including Andrew let me throw in my 2 cents.
Among your preparations include gasoline and cash. When the power goes, the gas pumps and atms don't work. Yes I know some gas stations claim they taken steps to correct this. Guess what........ Locking gas caps are a great idea. When the gas lines get long the sipheners come out, beware!
Storing water is okay but now I also keep a couple of filters handy. Gas grills are preferable than barbecues. You can regulate the heat with the gas grills. Canned food is good. We were able to cook meals that where pretty good. Consider rice, pasta and other goods that don't need refrigeration. We stock up on things we'd eat anyway. Powdered baby formula is essential if you have a child. Make single servings to avoid spoilage. If you're into coffee it's a great moral booster. If you can manage both, you can barbecue your meats just after the storm, befriend your neighbors, and plan for the common defense. Sounds cooky but it made a huge diffrence for us during our two weeks of darkness.
Baby wipes, duct tape, industrial size tie wraps, and work gloves should all be in your kit. Baby wipes help maintain everyones hygine not just clean your baby's butt. Duct tape, need I say more. Work gloves are essential for avoiding blisters when clearing debry. You do have an ax, saw and/or chainsaw? Industrial tie wraps for detaining looters. Maybe they surrendered. No I haven't needed them, but heard of several cases where they would have been useful.
During natural disasters you'll see incredible acts of kindness and neighborly love. Unfortunately you'll also see some of the most discusting opportunist taking advantage of the chaos. Looters come out of seemingly everywhere including other states. Consider using the debry to control access to your area. We blocked of one side of the culdesac we used to live in with the downed trees we where clearing. This severely limited access to vehicles. From listening to a police scanner we knew looters where going to isolated neighborhoods in 4 wheel drive vehicles ,in large numbers , and armed to the teeth. Having firearms available at least would give us a fighting chance. Controlling the terrain is a defininte advantage. Pistols are okay but rifles rule. Long guns, particularly military style rifles are really what you want during times of civil unrest.
The police cant help you immediately. In fact we where on our own for days. Fortunately nothing happened. As a husband and father it is my duty to protect my familly. Fortunately I have friends and familly that could aid us in the common defense. There was one case where armed looters disarmed and robbed a community. The people of this community where unwilling to shoot the looters who where also armed. They layed their arms down and stepped aside while the thieves took what they wished. Fortunately they didn't take their women or children.
Communication is essential. Having a NON cordless telephone available is very useful. Lan lines often work even when the power is down. Cordless phones however need electricity from an outlet to function. Cellphones are great, yet will not work if the cell towers are damaged. Still having a converter which allows you to charge things with your car is a great idea. Often times pay phones will also work. Still having a plan is essential. A list of people to call after the storm is a good idea. Meeting points are great when appropriate.
By the way 911 wasn't working for days after one hurricane just grazed us. Make sure you have good supply of any medications. A friend discovered much to his distress the VA hospital didn't have his life saving medication and wouldn't have it for days following a hurricane. Of course the usual aspirin, tylenol stuff should also be included. As should citronella candles. Mosquitoes, heat and other discomforts just add to the misery. If you could swing it, small battery powered fans, the type you could use while camping do wonders in creating comfort. Portable battery powered dvd player/tv's are great for entertainment particularly for the kids. Remember that converter to charge things from your car? We played cards, dominoes, and board games.
Hope This Helps,
Tony Torre
Miami Arnis Group
www.miamiarnisgroup.com
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Frogs Swarmed in China Before the Quake--Now It's California
Frogs Swarmed in China Before the Quake--Now It's California
19-May-2008
In the days prior to the gigantic earthquake that devastated Sichuan province in China, odd swarms of frogs were seen in the streets of cities in the area, and have subsequently been identified as unusual animal behavior of the type that is thought by some geologists to precede earthquakes. Now it has developed that similar frog appearances have been taking place in Bakersfield, California for about two weeks, and nobody is sure why. Strange swarms of frogs also appeared before the 6.9 Loma Prieta Earthquake in October of 1989.
The frogs are emerging from a drainage ditch and are being observed in swarms of hundreds by local residents. Nobody can remember a frog swarm like this in the area. The animals appear to be emerging from a drainage ditch, and it is possible that a lack of natural predators in the water has allowed the overgrowth of frogs.
A more controversial earthquake sign is linear clouds, or clouds that appear arrayed in lines, such as those shown in this photograph, which was taken in Shandong Province, also on May 9, 2 days prior to the Sichuan quake. So far, such clouds have not been observed by Unknowncountry.com correspondents in California, but should you see a similar formation, please photograph it and send the picture to us at News@unknowncountry.com .
If you live in California, do consider making preparations for an earthquake. If you have made such preparations, check your supplies, especially water supplies, and review your family emergency plan. However, there is no conclusive evidence that the Bakersfield toads represent more than a disturbing coincidence. There are far fewer of them than appeared in China, and they have been swarming for two weeks. The frogs in China appeared just two days before the quake took place, and in much greater numbers.
http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=6882
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Thursday, July 24, 2008
WorldNetDaily
A Wall Street Journal columnist has advised people to "start stockpiling food" and an ABC News Report says "there are worrying signs appearing in the United States where some … locals are beginning to hoard supplies." Now there's concern that the U.S. government may be competing with consumers for stocks of storable food.
"We're told that the feds bought the entire container of canned butter when it hit the California docks. (Something's up!)," said officials at Best Prices Storable Foods in an advisory to customers.
Spokesman Bruce Hopkins told WND he also has had trouble obtaining No. 10 cans of various products from one of the world's larger suppliers of food stores, Oregon Freeze Dry.
He said a company official told him on the telephone when he discussed the status of his order that it was because the government had purchased massive quantities of products, leaving none for other customers.
That, however, was denied by Oregon Freeze Dry. In a website statement, the company confirmed it cannot assure supplying some items to customers.
"We regret to inform you Oregon Freeze Dry cannot satisfy all Mountain House #10 can orders and we have removed #10 cans from our website temporarily," the company tells frustrated customers. "The reason for this is sales of #10 cans have continued to increase. OFD is allocating as much production capacity as possible to this market segment, but we must maintain capacity for our other market segments as well."
The company statement continues, "We want to clarify inaccurate information we’ve seen on the Internet. This situation is not due to sales to the government domestically or in Iraq. We do sell products to this market, but we also sell other market segments … The reason for this decision is solely due to an unprecedented sales spike in #10 cans sales.
"We expect this situation to be necessary for several months although this isn’t a guarantee. We will update this information as soon as we know more. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience. We sincerely hope you will continue to be Mountain House customers in the future," the company statement said.
But Hopkins wasn't backing away from his concerns.
"The government just came in and said they're buying it. They did pay for it," he told WND about the summertime shipment of long-term storage butter. "They took it and no one else could have it.
"We don't know why. The feds then went to freeze dried companies, and bought most of their canned stock," he said.
A spokeswoman for Oregon Freeze Dry, sales manager Melanie Cornutt, told WND that the increasing demand for food that can be stored has been on the rise since Hurricane Katrina devastated large sections of the Gulf Coast, cutting off ordinary supply routes.
"We are currently out of stock on our cans. We are not selling any of our cans," she confirmed.
She then raised the issue of government purchases herself.
"We do sell to the government [but] it is not the reason [for company sales limits]," she said.
Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency told WND whatever government agency is buying in a surge it isn't them. They reported a stockpile of about six million meals which has not changed significantly in an extended period.
But Hopkins said it was his opinion the government is purchasing huge quantities of food for stockpiles, and Americans will have to surmise why.
"We don't have shelters that [are being] stocked with food. We're not doing this for the public. My only conclusion is that they're stocking up for themselves," he said of government officials.
Blogger Holly Deyo issued an alert this week announcing, "Unprecedented demand cleans out major storable food supplier through 2009."
"It came to our attention today, that the world's largest producer of storable foods, Mountain House, is currently out of stock of ALL #10 cans of freeze dried foods, not just the Turkey Tetrazzini. They will NOT have product now through 2009," she said.
"This information was learned by a Mountain House dealer who shared it with me this morning. In personally talking with the company immediately after, Mountain House verified the information is true. Customer service stated, 'I'm surprised they don't have this posted on the website yet.' She said they have such a backlog of orders, Mountain House will not be taking any #10 can food requests through the remainder of this year and all of the next.
"Mountain House claims this situation is due to a backlog of orders, which may very well be true, but who is purchasing all of their food? This is a massive global corporation.
"One idea: the military. Tensions are ramping up with Iran and news segments debate whether or not we will implement a preemptive strike in conjunction with Israel," she wrote.
Hopkins raised some of the same concerns, suggesting a military conflict could cause oil supplies to plummet, triggering a huge increase in the cost of food – when it would be available – because of the transportation issues.
The ABC report from just a few weeks ago quoted Jim Rawles, a former U.S. intelligence officer who runs a survival blog, saying food shortages soon could become a matter of survival in the U.S.
"I think that families should be prepared for times of crisis, whether it's a man-made disaster or a natural disaster, and I think it's wise and prudent to stock up on food," he told ABC.
"If you get into a situation where fuel supplies are disrupted or even if the power grid were to go down for short periods of time, people can work around that," he said. "But you can't work around a lack of food – people starve, people panic and you end up with chaos in the streets."
At his California ranch, the location of which is kept secret, he said, "We have more than a three-year supply of food here."
In the Wall Street Journal, columnist Brett Arends warned, "Maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
"No, this is not a drill," he wrote.
His concern was about various food shortages around the globe, and the fact that in a global market, prices in the U.S. reflect difficulties in other parts of the world quickly.
Professor Lawrence F. Roberge, a biologist who has worked with a number of universities and has taught online courses, told WND he's been following the growing concern over food supplies.
He also confirmed to WND reports of the government purchasing vast quantities of long-term storable foods.
He said that naturally would be kept secret to avoid panicking the public, such as when word leaks out to customers that a bank may be insolvent, and depositors frantically try to retrieve their cash.
"[These] circumstances certainly raise red flags," he said.
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Crafty,
Depending on circumstances, running your generator might attract attention you don't want under those worst case scenarios.
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That's what the 12 gage and related tools are for. :evil:
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What do we do the day after this?
How do we prepare?
What can we do to protect our electronically stored records (e.g. bank accounts, business records, website businesses, etc)?
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http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/ira...29/117217.html
Newsmax.com
U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008 9:00 AM
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman
Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned.
In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests. One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.
“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”
Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”
Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001. The commission examined the Iranian tests “and without too much effort connected the dots,” even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said.
“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”
The commission warned in a report issued in April that the United States was at risk of a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation or a terrorist group designed to take out our nation’s critical infrastructure.
"If even a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure," the report warned.
While not causing immediate civilian casualties, the near-term impact on U.S. society would dwarf the damage of a direct nuclear strike on a U.S. city.
“The first indication [of such an attack] would be that the power would go out, and some, but not all, the telecommunications would go out. We would not physically feel anything in our bodies,” Graham said.
As electric power, water and gas delivery systems failed, there would be “truly massive traffic jams,” Graham added, since modern automobiles and signaling systems all depend on sophisticated electronics that would be disabled by the EMP wave.
“So you would be walking. You wouldn’t be driving at that point,” Graham said. “And it wouldn’t do any good to call the maintenance or repair people because they wouldn’t be able to get there, even if you could get through to them.”
The food distribution system also would grind to a halt as cold-storage warehouses stockpiling perishables went offline. Even warehouses equipped with backup diesel generators would fail, because “we wouldn’t be able to pump the fuel into the trucks and get the trucks to the warehouses,” Graham said.
The United States “would quickly revert to an early 19th century type of country.” except that we would have 10 times as many people with ten times fewer resources, he said. “Most of the things we depend upon would be gone, and we would literally be depending on our own assets and those we could reach by walking to them,” Graham said. America would begin to resemble the 2002 TV series, “Jeremiah,” which depicts a world bereft of law, infrastructure, and memory. In the TV series, an unspecified virus wipes out the entire adult population of the planet. In an EMP attack, the casualties would be caused by our almost total dependence on technology for everything from food and water, to hospital care. Within a week or two of the attack, people would start dying, Graham says.
“People in hospitals would be dying faster than that, because they depend on power to stay alive. But then it would go to water, food, civil authority, emergency services. And we would end up with a country with many, many people not surviving the event.”
Asked just how many Americans would die if Iran were to launch the EMP attack it appears to be preparing, Graham gave a chilling reply.
“You have to go back into the 1800s to look at the size of population” that could survive in a nation deprived of mechanized agriculture, transportation, power, water, and communication.
“I’d have to say that 70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after this kind of attack,” he said.
America would be reduced to a core of around 30 million people — about the number that existed in the decades after America’s independence from Great Britain. The modern electronic economy would shut down, and America would most likely revert to “an earlier economy based on barter,” the EMP commission’s report on Critical National Infrastructure concluded earlier this year.
In his recent congressional testimony, Graham revealed that Iranian military journals, translated by the CIA at his commission’s request, “explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States.”
Furthermore, if Iran launched its attack from a cargo ship plying the commercial sea lanes off the East coast — a scenario that appears to have been tested during the Caspian Sea tests — U.S. investigators might never determine who was behind the attack. Because of the limits of nuclear forensic technology, it could take months. And to disguise their traces, the Iranians could simply decide to sink the ship that had been used to launch it, Graham said. Several participants in last weekend’s conference in Dearborn, Mich., hosted by the conservative Claremont Institute argued that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was thinking about an EMP attack when he opined that “a world without America is conceivable.”
In May 2007, then Undersecretary of State John Rood told Congress that the U.S. intelligence community estimates that Iran could develop an ICBM capable of hitting the continental United States by 2015. But Iran could put a Scud missile on board a cargo ship and launch from the commercial sea lanes off America’s coasts well before then. The only thing Iran is lacking for an effective EMP attack is a nuclear warhead, and no one knows with any certainty when that will occur. The latest U.S. intelligence estimate states that Iran could acquire the fissile material for a nuclear weapon as early as 2009, or as late as 2015, or possibly later.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld first detailed the “Scud-in-a-bucket” threat during a briefing in Huntsville, Ala., on Aug. 18, 2004.
While not explicitly naming Iran, Rumsfeld revealed that “one of the nations in the Middle East had launched a ballistic missile from a cargo vessel. They had taken a short-range, probably Scud missile, put it on a transporter-erector launcher, lowered it in, taken the vessel out into the water, peeled back the top, erected it, fired it, lowered it, and covered it up. And the ship that they used was using a radar and electronic equipment that was no different than 50, 60, 100 other ships operating in the immediate area.”
Iran’s first test of a ship-launched Scud missile occurred in spring 1998, and was mentioned several months later in veiled terms by the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, a blue-ribbon panel also known as the Rumsfeld Commission. I was the first reporter to mention the Iran sea-launched missile test in an article appearing in the Washington Times in May 1999.
Intelligence reports on the launch were “well known to the White House but have not been disseminated to the appropriate congressional committees,” I wrote. Such a missile “could be used in a devastating stealth attack against the United States or Israel for which the United States has no known or planned defense.”
Few experts believe that Iran can be deterred from launching such an attack by the threat of massive retaliation against Iran. They point to a December 2001 statement by former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who mulled the possibility of Israeli retaliation after an Iranian nuclear strike.
“The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely, while [the same] against the Islamic only would cause damages. Such a scenario is not inconceivable,” Rafsanjani said at the time.
Rep. Trent Franks, R, Ariz., plans to introduce legislation next week that would require the Pentagon to lay the groundwork for an eventual military strike against Iran, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and EMP capability. “An EMP attack on America would send us back to the horse and buggy era — without the horse and buggy,” he told the Claremont Institute conference on Saturday. “If you’re a terrorist, this is your ultimate goal, your ultimate asymmetric weapon.” Noting Iran’s recent sea-launched and mid-flight warhead detonation tests, Rep. Franks concluded, “They could do it — either directly or anonymously by putting some freighter out there on the ocean.”
The only possible deterrent against Iran is the prospect of failure, Dr. Graham and other experts agreed. And the only way the United States could credibly threaten an Iranian missile strike would be to deploy effective national missile defenses.
“It’s well known that people don’t go on a diet until they’ve had a heart attack,” said Claremont Institute president Brian T. Kennedy. “And we as a nation are having a heart attack” when it comes to the threat of an EMP attack from Iran.
“As of today, we have no defense against such an attack. We need space-based missile defenses to protect against an EMP attack,” he told Newsmax.
Rep. Franks said he remains surprised at how partisan the subject of space-based missile defenses remain. “Nuclear missiles don’t discriminate on party lines when they land,” he said. Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, a long-standing champion of missile defense, told the Claremont conference on Friday that Sen. Obama has opposed missile defense tooth and nail and as president would cut funding for these programs dramatically. “Senator Obama has been quoted as saying, ‘I don’t agree with a missile defense system,’ and that we can cut $10 billion of the research out — never mind, as I say, that the entire budget is $9.6 billion, or $9.3 billion,” Kyl said. Like Franks, Kyl believes that the only way to eventually deter Iran from launching an EMP attack on the United States is to deploy robust missile defense systems, including space-based interceptors.
The United States “needs a missile defense that is so strong, in all the different phases we need to defend against . . . that countries will decide it’s not worth coming up against us. That’s one of the things that defeated the Soviet Union. That’s one of the ways we can deal with these rogue states . . . and also the way that we can keep countries that are not enemies today, but are potential enemies, from developing capabilities to challenge us,“ Kyl said.
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**Moving out of SoCal is probably the best survival strategy, overall.** :evil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
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http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/worst_case_scenarios/4275747.html
L.A. Quake Was Minor, but Is America Ready for the Big One?
By Erik Sofge
Published on: July 30, 2008
Spectators look at a Pomona, California, scene where bricks collapsed into an alley from an unoccupied building during a magnitude 5.4 earthquake on July 29th. (Photograph by David McNew/Getty Images)
Yesterday morning, Los Angeles dodged another bullet. The earthquake that originated near Chino Hills, roughly 35 miles east of downtown L.A., was powerful enough to rattle homes and damage a hotel near the epicenter. But with a magnitude of 5.4, it was classified by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as a moderate quake—one of 39 such events in the country this year. A moderate earthquake could pose a serious threat in some regions, particularly in places like New York City, where many brownstones were built more than a century ago. In Southern California, where seismic upheaval is practically routine, this quake left few signs of its passage.
“Engineered structures are meant to withstand a 5.4 earthquake,” says Jamie Steidl, a research seismologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Institute for Crustal Studies. “Even non-engineered, old, unreinforced masonry structures should still be okay. There’s lots of old stuff in Long Beach, and in some of these cities that have been around awhile—older brick buildings that aren’t reinforced. But at this magnitude, we’re not even pushing what the building code was 80 years ago.” The quake preparedness of Los Angeles was put to the test yesterday, but only barely.
The Chino Hills event, minor as it may have been, was a reminder of the United States’ earthquake vulnerability. In Japan and Mexico, researchers have developed earthquake early warning systems, which can detect seismic activity and trigger a sequence of automated responses. This is a frantic sort of race, since the waves created by an earthquake propagate at some 3 kilometers, or nearly 2 miles, per second. In Japan, where quakes tend to start in offshore subduction zones, some areas would have a minute or more to prepare for the worst. “There’s a whole bunch you can do in 60 seconds,” says Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). “Shutting off gas mains. Conditioning the electrical grid for what’s going to happen. In hospital situations, especially during surgery, there’s a lot you can do.”
So far, Japan’s early warning system hasn’t done very much—it failed to detect the country’s last two moderate quakes. But in the United States, the outlook is even worse, since no such earthquake early warning system exists, though some preliminary research is underway. “Right now, we’re just fiddling with the concepts,” says Jordan. “We’re not into operational testing, yet.” Coincidentally, says Jordan, a Caltech team reported that its experimental detection gear had been off-line when the Chino Hills earthquake hit.
Realistically, however, if the recent quake had been severe, closer to the 6.7 magnitude that the USGS says is almost certain to hit the state in the next few decades, an earthquake early warning system wouldn’t have helped. The quake simply occurred too close to Los Angeles, with the ground-shaking waves hitting the city in less than 20 seconds. That’s why most of the research into early warning is focused on the San Andreas fault, which can produce earthquakes as close as 40 km (25 miles) from L.A., or as far as 200 km (nearly 125 miles) south of the city. With enough distance, a system-wide alert becomes viable. “Think of an earthquake as a cascade of events,” Jordan says. “They can generate tsunamis, which take some time to hit. Fire following earthquakes, that’s one of the biggest problems you can have. So you get the firetrucks ready, the station doors open. If you know what is happening, you can begin to prepare for what is going to happen later in that cascade.”
As limited as an earthquake early warning detection might be, the potential benefits—particularly in Southern California—seem clear. “It’s something we should be pushing a lot harder than we’re pushing. And we’ve fallen behind other countries. We’ve been a little remiss, to be honest,” Jordan says. He believes a system could be up and running in California in five years, at the earliest. That’s assuming that government agencies like the National Science Foundation and the USGS greenlight additional funding for research. Unfortunately, Jordan thinks it could take a large disaster to make that happen.
In the meantime, the SCEC is helping to prepare for just such a disaster, with the United States’ largest earthquake drill. Scheduled for this November, the Great Southern California Shakeout will test the region’s response to a simulated 7.8 magnitude quake at the southern end of the San Andreas fault. Using supercomputers, seismologists have created a scenario that calculates where the most severe damage would occur, how many fires might be started, and how many lives could be lost. The event will include at least 5 million participants throughout the region, from schools and firefighters to agencies like FEMA. “In a recent meeting, the L.A. County Fire Chief told us, ‘We’ve never really thought this through,’” Jordan says. “A lot of the standard operation procedures wouldn’t apply. That’s what we learned from Katrina. A big enough hammer blow shatters the system. We want to make sure that when that hammer comes down this time, and it’s going to come, the system doesn’t break.”
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The EMP Threat
August 9, 2008; Page A10
WSJ
Imagine you're a terrorist with a single nuclear weapon. You could wipe out the U.S. city of your choice, or you could decide to destroy the infrastructure of the entire U.S. economy and leave millions of Americans to die of starvation or want of medical care.
The latter scenario is the one envisioned by a long-running commission to assess the threat from electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The subject of its latest, and little discussed, report to Congress is the effect an EMP attack could have on civilian infrastructure. If you're prone to nightmares, don't read it before bedtime.
An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes high in the Earth's atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast destroys all the electronics in its line of sight. For a bomb detonated over the Midwest, that includes most of the continental U.S. Few, if any, people die in the blast. It's what comes next that has the potential to be catastrophic. Since an EMP surge wipes out electronics, virtually every aspect of modern American life would come to a standstill.
The commission's list of horribles is 181 pages long. The chapter on food, for instance, catalogs the disruptions up and down the production chain as food spoils or has no way to get to market. Many families have food supplies of several days or more. But after that, and without refrigeration, what? The U.S. also has 75,000 dams and reservoirs, 168,000 drinking water-treatment facilities, and 19,000 wastewater treatment centers -- all with pumps, valves and filters run by electricity.
Getting everything up and running again is not merely a matter of flipping a switch, and the commission estimates that many systems could be out of service for months or a year or more -- far longer than emergency stockpiles or batteries could cover. The large transformers used in electrical transmission are no longer built in the U.S. and delivery time is typically three years. "Lack of high voltage equipment manufacturing capacity represents a glaring weakness in our survival and recovery," the commission notes.
Many industries rely on automated control systems maintained by small work forces. In emergencies -- say, during a blackout -- companies often have arrangements in place to borrow workers from outside the affected area to augment the locals and help with manual repairs. After an EMP attack, those workers would be busy in their home regions -- or foraging for food and water for their families.
The commission offers extensive recommendations for how industry and government can protect against the effects of an EMP attack and ensure a quicker recovery. They include "hardening" more equipment to withstand an electromagnetic pulse; making sure replacement equipment is on hand; training recovery personnel; increasing federal food stockpiles; and many others.
If not, our vulnerability "can both invite and reward attack," the commission's chairman, William Graham, told Congress last month. Iran's military writings "explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States," he said. James Shinn, an assistant secretary of defense, has said that China is developing EMP weapons. The commission calls an EMP attack "one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences." The threat is real. It's past time to address it.
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Sent by a friend:
Subject: Disaster Preparedness Begins at home
September is National Preparedness month. Please read and/or print
out the following checklists to get your family ready at home.
Compliments of the Dept of Homeland Security.
Generic Checklist for home:
http://www.ready.gov/america/_downloads/checklist.pdf
Older citizens:
http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/seniors.html
http://www.ready.gov/america/_downloads/older_americans.pdf
People with disabilities:
http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/seniors.html
http://www.ready.gov/america/_downloads/disabilities.pdf
Pet Owners:
http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/pets.html
http://www.ready.gov/america/_downloads/pets.pdf
Some other things to consider that you won't find on these lists:
1. You can never have enough water and food - try to get enough for 2
weeks.
2. Get a crowbar, hammer, wrenches. Remember that you do have a jack
in the truck of your car. You may need them to get someone out of the
rubble when we have an earthquake.
3. Rope. You can get 50' of nylon rope at Big Lots for $3 a bundle.
4. Get leather gloves. Broken glass will be everywhere.
5. Have extra tennis shoes, socks, and clothes where you can get to
them - how about a backpack in the trunk of your car? You may be
stuck wearing the same clothes for a week, so take that into
consideration.
6. Make sure everyone in your family knows a designated relative's
phone number out of state so you can all call in and leave message for
each other. In many cases it may be the only way you'll have peace of
mind knowing that they are ok.
7. How will you protect your family from thugs and looters? You
won't find this on any list. Take a lesson from Hurricanes Katrina
and Wilma.
Remember, we have plans in place to take care of children and
dependent adults on site in the event of an earthquake. If your
children aren't able to go to school, bring them with you when you
report.
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Reference EMP strikes.....
Guro Crafty ...Thank You for allowing acssess to this forum......
Regards EMP , All small electronic gear (walkie talkies , emergency wind - up radios , pc`s etc )
and the like can be stowed inside biscuit tins or similiar ,,,this will stop the pulse frying the circuits....
Larger items such as cars, generators, motors and the like can be stowed in garges (preferably underground if poss and the shell of the garage Including floor ,cocooned with a steel mesh - comparable to steel reinforcing,,,this acts as what is known as a "Faraday Cage" after the great Will Faraday .
Searches for EMP protection on the net will give a good lead in for this....As an aside to this, the Soviets in their drive for all things pragmatic had the old electrical valve set as radios and for the controls of their bombers , including their comms.This was beacause valve sets are immune to EMP un like IC`s in more modern and commercial equipment that dont repel the pulse.
Its not an "EMP 101" , but maybe its a help for others....
Cheers from Wales ,UK
Thomas 8-)
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Woof Thomas:
Very interesting, thank you.
TAC,
Marc
PS: Welcome aboard!
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An interesting thread. Maybe it's just me and some "getting older" paranoia, but in the past I did not give much thought to being prepared at home for some length of time. However, since about the end of last year, my wife and I have both reconsidered this and now, while we don't live in a bunker, we do make an effort to have a stock of supplies, pet food, meds - and have been really cutting a lot of firewood for this winter. In the past, the wood stove was only considered a supplement, now it's seen as a possible only source of heat.
I ponder whether this is just crazy thinking or prudent pre-emptive action. But, while I'm pondering, I'm also staying prepared.
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A recent publication analyzes and details where you are most likely to die from a given environmental factor such as flood, heat, storm, etc. Abstract as follows:
Spatial patterns of natural hazards mortality in the United States
Kevin A Borden and Susan L Cutter
International Journal of Health Geographics 2008, 7:64doi:10.1186/1476-072X-7-64
Published: 17 December 2008
Abstract (provisional)
Background
Studies on natural hazard mortality are most often hazard-specific (e.g. floods, earthquakes, heat), event specific (e.g. Hurricane Katrina), or lack adequate temporal or geographic coverage. This makes it difficult to assess mortality from natural hazards in any systematic way. This paper examines the spatial patterns of natural hazard mortality at the county-level for the U.S. from 1970-2004 using a combination of geographical and epidemiological methods.
Results
Chronic everyday hazards such as severe weather (summer and winter) and heat account for the majority of natural hazard fatalities. The regions most prone to deaths from natural hazards are the South and intermountain west, but sub-regional county-level mortality patterns show more variability. There is a distinct urban/rural component to the county patterns as well as a coastal trend. Significant clusters of high mortality are in the lower Mississippi Valley, upper Great Plains, and Mountain West, with additional areas in west Texas, and the panhandle of Florida, Significant clusters of low mortality are in the Midwest and urbanized Northeast.
Conclusions
There is no consistent source of hazard mortality data, yet improvements in existing databases can produce quality data that can be incorporated into spatial epidemiological studies as demonstrated in this paper. It is important to view natural hazard mortality through a geographic lens so as to better inform the public living in such hazard prone areas, but more importantly to inform local emergency practitioners who must plan for and respond to disasters in their community.
Interesting graphic:
(http://www.foxnews.com/images/481392/1_61_natural_death_map.jpg)
Full report with several intriguing graphics at the end:
http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/pdf/1476-072x-7-64.pdf
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Select an area and a nuclear devices, and then calculate the blast radius:
http://www.carloslabs.com/projects/200712B/GroundZero.html
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http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=6106775&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/index.html
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Haven't had a chance to look at these yet, but they come recommended:
http://www.americanpreppersnetworkradionet.com/
http://www.arizonapreppersnetwork.com/
http://www.prepperbook.com/
http://www.americanpreppersnetwork.com/
http://www.whatisaprepper.blogspot.com/
http://www.prepper.org/
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Survivalblog.com (http://Survivalblog.com) has a TON of information. If you go to their forum, stick with the Gulching thread unless you want to see some of the wild and wooly stuff going around. Oathkeepers is also on that forum.
-
Michael Yon on Gobar Gas
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/gobar-gas.htm
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Biogas, anaerobically digested makes methane/ natural gas. Use it in a properly tuned 2 stroke engine and you can generate electricity. Any gas stove can also use ths stuff to cook with.......... The only question is, will there be some Islamic religious taboo about cooking with "fart gas".
Linkys:
motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1971-11-01/How-To-Build-a-100-cu-ft-day-Methane-Gas-Plant.aspx (http://motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1971-11-01/How-To-Build-a-100-cu-ft-day-Methane-Gas-Plant.aspx)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_digestion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_digestion)
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/farm_energy/biomass.html (http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/farm_energy/biomass.html)
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/1975-03-01/Methane-Energy-Generator.aspx (http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/1975-03-01/Methane-Energy-Generator.aspx)
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How able are you to deal with fire? Remember how south central burned and the FD could not get thru rioters.......
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How able are you to deal with fire? Remember how south central burned and the FD could not get thru rioters.......
I don't know if there's much you can do in an urban area in the event of massive fires (other than the obvious benefits of having fire extinguishers throughout the home for smaller fires) In the event of urban riots, I'd probably consider filling some buckets with sand to extingusih any molotov cocktails that could come through the windows, maybe a fire tarp to smother curtains, etc. that caught fire (you can often buy one from stores that sell fire extinguishers). Other than that, I'd look at removing flammables (garbage bins, etc.) from around the house at such a time, and maybe a general policy of cutting back foliage or trees that could burn and represent a hazard to the residence, the way people living in fire-prone areas in the forests (such as San Diego, Flagstaff, etc.) are supposed to do but often don't. When a forest fire threatens houses in those areas, you often read about people spraying their house with a hose to try to make it less flammable - but in most civil emergencies, I would guess that water pressure drops dramatically.
After going through the riots and the Northridge and Whittier quakes when I lived in L.A., a couple of lessons I learned:
I was living in a condo townhouse in Westwood at the time of the Northridge quake, and walking around the neighbrohood afterward I noticed that a lot of the brick walls and chimmneys on the houses in the area collapsed - apparently, wood-frame structures bend with the shock wave of a quake but brick shatters. We took some roof damage that resulted in regular leaks for the next couple of years, a couple of neighbor's houses had major roof damage (like, you can see the blue sky from inside damage.) For emergency repairs to windows and roofs and a lot of other potential uses in an emergency, I've always bought a lot of heavy duty painter's plastic tarps when I see them on sale and store them away. The dark plastic ones make pretty fair blackout curtains if you wouldn't want to attract attention to your home in a city without regular power.
Food disappeared from the shelves in our neighborhood in L.A. or a while afterwards. I take the poor man's approach to food stockpiling - I pick up canned foods by the case at Smart and Final or Costco when on sale, as long as they are foods we would eat anyway - soups, canned veggies and meat, etc. - and store them in closets, under the bathroom sink, etc., after writing the month and year of purchase on the cans with a sharpie - a year or two after purchase, we eat them and regularly rotate through the stock (they would probably be good for a couple more years, but why take chances.) They should be foods your family will eat - an emergency is no time to introduce your children to canned beets).
I also bought the big jugs of Sparkletts water and stored those away on the balcony, etc.
After the Northridge quake, we really wanted to know what was going on and the extent of the damage (we were without power for a day or two) - having some battery-powered radios, and a huge stockpile of different types of batteries, is a good thing.
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We have a substantial gasoline powered generator with enough power and enough outlets to keep our refrigerator and other things going , , , and the substantial length of construction grade extensions cords necessary to make the connections possible.
-
Noise!
-
No excrement!
OTOH having all the food in the refrigerator go bad and have no internet access until electricity is restored could be a much bigger bummer.
-
There are muffling methods, but if you are the only guy with a generator expect to make a bunch of new "freinds of convenience" :-D
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http://vitality.yahoo.com/video-second-act-jay-shafer-20910192
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WSJ
Japan's quake-ravaged northern communities continued to be pinched by food and water shortages Monday, while even cities far from the damage experienced "aftershocks" as the effects from Friday's disaster rippled through the economy and markets.
Rescue workers struggled to bring supplies to thousands of residents of towns along the northeast coast, hardest hit by the 8.9-magnitude quake and tsunami on Friday. Survivors appeared on television, saying they didn't have power and were running out of food and water. People atop one building had written a huge Chinese character for "water" on the roof, so it could be seen by rescue helicopters.
Residents are dealing with a lack of rations in Northern Japan, as transportation equipment is hampered in the aftermath of Friday's quake. WSJ's Eric Bellman reports from Sendai.
.The official death toll continued to climb, reaching around 1,800 by Monday afternoon. National broadcaster NHK reported that more than 450,000 people had moved to temporary shelters in the affected areas.
Miyoko Sugiyama, who lived a few blocks from the beach near the hard-hit city of Sendai, said she was happy to escape with her husband and 14-year-old dog. "There were 2,700 homes" in her neighborhood, she said. "Now there are only a few left."
Troubles continued to mount at the nuclear-power site in Fukushima Prefecture, where there was an explosion over the weekend. On Monday, an explosion occurred in the building housing a second reactor at the site, while the cooling system for a third reactor also failed, authorities said.
And in Tokyo, financial markets and commuters alike were pounded on the first working day after the quake.
Tokyo shares plunged, logging losses not seen since the first months of the global financial crisis. The Nikkei Stock Average closed at 9620.49, down 633.94 points or 6.2%—its sharpest single-day percentage loss since December 2008. The Topix index of all the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section issues slid 68.55 points, or 7.5%, to 846.96, its heaviest loss since October 2008.
To prevent a cash crunch, the Bank of Japan injected a record 18 trillion yen (about $220 billion) into the short-term money markets and doubled the size of its asset-purchase program.
Ruined Homes and Radiation
View Slideshow
Aly Song/Reuters
Emiko Ohta, 52, can't bear to look at the debris that was her home in Kuji, Iwate prefecture.
.
.
Confusion reigned at Tokyo Electric Power Company, which said it would conduct rolling outages during the day in order to conserve power, then reversed course at the last minute when it saw energy demand was lower than usual. But Tepco's plans caused Tokyo's train companies to drastically cut back service, leaving thousands of commuters without a way to get to work.
"I was really confused about both the power cuts and the train services," said Nobuyoshi Takashimaya, a 56 year old employee at an insurance firm in Tokyo. He said he had to walk one hour from home to reach his office because his train wasn't running.
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http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/007967.html
March 13, 2011
Lessons From Japan For US West Coast
Planet Earth is dangerous. Those of us on the US, Canadian, and Central American West Coast should think seriously about what we can learn from the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor failures.
Japan’s massive earthquake and tsunami is alerting the US west coast that the same kind of thing could happen here. In fact, say experts who study the earth’s shifting crust, the “big one” may be past due.
The Pacific Northwest is especially vulnerable and could experience a 9.0 earthquake either onshore or offshore. If offshore the time to get to higher ground would be on the order of about 15 minutes. The Cascadia subduction zone could shake and cause offshore landslides that would cause massive wave movement.
The Cascadia earthquake of 1700 was previously thought to be part of a pattern of earthquakes that averaged 500 year intervals. But more recent research puts the average earthquake interval at 240 years. So we are about 71 years past the average Cascadia earthquake interval.
What about California? A Hayward fault quake could devastate the Bay Area forcing 200,000 out of their homes. SoCal is overdue for a Carrizo Plain earthquake. Risks come from other faults as well.
The US has several big earthquake risks including the New Madrid fault which last let loose in a major way in 1811 and 1812. A replay of especially severe 19th century natural disasters would make the earthquake in Japan small stuff in comparison.
What I'd like to know: How at risk are the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants from a tsunami and/or strong earthquake? Should they be made safer from tsunami or earthquake risks? The take-home lesson from the Japanese nuclear power plant failures is that equipment and designs for maintaining sufficient reactor coolant water must be capable of handling severe earthquakes. The need for active systems (as distinct from passive systems) to cool nuclear reactors is a very unfortunate aspect of most (all?) operating nuclear power plants today.
Diablo Canyon is designed to handle 20 foot tsunami waves. Can even bigger tsunami waves strike there?
DCPP is designed for storm surge waves of 36 feet and tsunami waves of 20 feet. In 1981, DCPP experienced a 31-foot storm surge. Because of the location and relative geometry of DCPP and the Cascadia (Washington-Oregon) earthquake, there would be no significant tsunami wave action at DCPP, particularly compared to the storm surge that has already been experienced at the plant. Waves from Alaska and Chile could be expected to reach DCPP in five and 13 hours, respectively.
Practical advice: Got enough water to last a couple of weeks? Got enough batteries? Warm clothing if you lose electric power and natural gas?
By Randall Parker at 2011 March 13 11:25 PM Dangers Natural Geological
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Turns out my expired :cry: potassium iodine is made by these folks:
http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/2003/ucm147362.htm
Whole Foods has been out since Saturday; I'm on the waiting list for the next shipment.
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I wouldn't take any potassium iodide unless there is an actual rad plume heading to Cali.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366198/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-US-West-Coast-victim.html
Is California next? Experts warn U.S. West Coast could be next victim of devastating earthquake on Pacific's 'Ring of Fire'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366198/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-US-West-Coast-victim.html
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Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton examines the importance of having an emergency evacuation plan in light of the unrest in Bahrain and the disaster in Japan.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
The recent political instability in Bahrain, on the heels of the nuclear disaster in Japan, highlights the need to have an emergency plan in place before you need it.
A basic plan consists of three critical factors, the first being a prearranged rendezvous point for family or loved ones. The second factor is a communications plan in the event of cell phone tower failure; one of the tools you can utilize is a satellite telephone, which enables you to communicate outside the affected area whenever your cell phone coverage and Internet is out. The third factor is having a primary and secondary route of escape.
When looking at primary and secondary evacuation routes, geography is going to be critical. You need to think about your means of escape when, for example, your primary route may be taken out, due to things such as a tsunami. Your secondary means of escape can include either roads or trains, as well as many other global providers that you can subscribe to that will actually come and assist you in those kinds of events. These service are usually fee-based, and you usually have to sign up beforehand, but these services can aid you in getting out of the disaster zone either by air, road or by backpack if need be. They can also provide medical assistance if you are injured.
In a politically unstable environment, such as Bahrain on March 15, it is very important for you to have good intelligence as to what is taking place. Good intelligence will provide that tripwire and will enable you to make the decision to depart the affected area before it is too late. You can stay abreast of good intelligence by monitoring the local news and radio, websites such as STRATFOR, as well as any sources you may have in the local community that are linked to the government that may help understand what could be taking place.
For example, many of our readers, as well as many of our multinational clients, were able to reposition many of their personnel and assets out of Bahrain by monitoring our very detailed analyses as to what was taking place.
The “Above the Tearline” aspect of emergency action plans is: Don’t expect your government or your company to help you for 48 to 72 hours. Make a plan for yourself and know when it is time to execute it and get out.
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GM:
Agreed.
All:
My never-ceases-to-amaze-me wife has found the following concerning our expired shelf life PI:
What is the shelf life of KI tablets?
As with all drug products, the manufacturer must specify an expiration date
of the drug on either the package or the individually wrapped tablet. The
NRC distributes two tablet strengths of potassium iodide, 130 and 65 mg
tablets. The shelf life of IOSAT 130 mg tablets is 7 years and the shelf
life of ThyroSafe 65 mg tablets is 6 years.
For States interested in extending the shelf life of KI, the FDA has
published guidance on shelf life extension for the tablet form of potassium
iodide. Extending the shelf life of KI tablets is possible due to the
inherent stability of the chemical form. However, the tablets must be
stored under the conditions specified by the manufacturer to be considered
for shelf life extension. In addition, this guidance only is intended for
Federal agencies and State and local governments that maintain KI
stockpiles under the conditions specified by the manufacturer.
The liquid formulation of KI also has a shelf-life of 5 years. The
extension guidance does not apply to this product form.
Is it safe to take KI tablets with an expired shelf-life?
Yes, potassium iodide tablets are inherently stable and do not lose their
effectiveness over time. Manufacturers must label their products with a
shelf-life to ensure that consumers purchase safe and useful products.
According to FDA guidance on Shelf-life Extension, studies over many years
have confirmed that none of the components of KI tablets, including the
active ingredient, has any significant potential for chemical degradation
or interaction with other components or with components of the container
closure system when stored according to labeled directions. To date, the
only observed changes during stability (shelf-life) testing have been the
failure of some batches of KI tablets to meet dissolution specifications.
Some tablets tested required slightly longer than the specified time to
achieve dissolution. Even in the case of a failure of this sort, the
product remains usable. In such cases, instructions can be provided to
crush the tablets and mix them with a juice or other liquid prior to
administration as suggested for emergency pediatric dosing.
=============
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014505732_quakepills16.html
=============
http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/emerg-preparedness/protect-public/ki-faq.html
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http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/natural-disasters/what-happens-when-a-mega-earthquake-strikes-the-us-5413364?click=pm_latest
What Happens When a Mega-Earthquake Strikes the U.S.?
Japan is the most earthquake-savvy nation in the world—yet it was defenseless against last week's Sendai event, which has killed thousands and wreaked havoc on nuclear reactors and other infrastructure. With Japan still reeling, U.S. scientists are researching quake zones and pushing smarter building techniques to help minimize damage when the big one inevitably comes.
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I haven't looked at this yet, but my mom wants to know what to think of this:
From: Kacper <noreply@kacperpostawski.com>
Subject: Radiation Bioshield Technology is here...
To:
Date: Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 10:43 PM
If you've been concerned about the Radiation
from Japan's nuclear meltdown, and would like
more peace of mind knowing that you and
your family is safe for what is potentially
coming here, then check this out right now:
http://www.RadiationBioshield.com
Over the past few days I have been
working on releasing a powerful
technology to help people with
the effects of radiation from Japan's
nuclear disaster.
Go there now, and listen to my interview with
Adel Mosely, find out how this technology
works, and how you can get access to it
IMMEDIATELY.
http://www.RadiationBioshield.com
This is the same technology used by
NASA to help protect astronauts from
radiation and energetic problems in
space.
It works with sound waves that effect
the body on a sub-atomic level.
It was initially developed by CERN
(the European Center for Nuclear Research)
It's really, really powerful stuff, I
was given a hands on demo. I have to
say I was EXTREMELY skeptical of this
when I first heard about it, but Adel
completely blew me away. The things
he showed me were so extraordinary,
I simply can't write them as they
are too hard to believe.
This technology is, in my opinion,
100 years more advanced than anything
Western Medicine has access to today,
it's something Spielberg would put
into his latest sci-fi flick.
In a nutshell What this technology
does is, allows the cells in your body
to reach a state of "organized energetic
field" so that the cells in your body
can react to radiation in a neutral way.
Radiation, according to Adel, is simply
an energetic frequency that the body cannot
deal with, it causes massive cellular
dis-function, and eventually, cellular
failure(cancer+death)
Not with this technology though, and the
best part is, you can start using this
in just minutes from now, here's the
link again:
http://www.RadiationBioshield.com
Sincerely,
Kacper
Kacper Postawski
General Delivery
Hawi, HI
96719
US
-
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/hhs-continues-controversial-anti-radiation-purchasing-path-raising-ire-critics
HHS continues on controversial anti-radiation purchasing path, raising the ire of critics
Published 14 February 2006
The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) said Monday it would buy more than 400,000 doses of an anti-radiation drug for nearly $22 million. Buffalo Grove, Illinois-based Akorn will sell HHS 390,000 doses of a calcium-based compound and 60,000 doses of a zinc-based solution, which together work to cleanse some types of radiation from the bodies of those who have been exposed. The five-year contract has an option for HHS to buy an additional 500,000 doses of each drug.
Akorn is, in fact, the American distributor of German manufacturer Hameln Pharmaceuticals, which makes the Ca-DTPA and Zn-DTPA products. The two drugs have already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The deal is part of Project Bioshield, a $5.6 billion program aiming to encourage pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to do the R&D and production of bioterror-related vaccines and medications.
As we reported a couple of months ago, the radiation aspect of BioShield has come under ever more intense criticism by experts and industry insiders. A major goal of BioShield is the treatment of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), but Ca-DTPA and Zn-DTPA would not do it. The two drugs will not address ARS symptoms such as neutropenia (depletion of the body’s infection-fighting white blood cells), and they also would also not treat radiation from sources other than plutonium, americium, and curium. A year ago HHS bought 1.7 million pediatric doses of liquid potassium iodide, medication which prevents the thyroid gland from absorbing too much radioactive iodine but which does not prevent the effects of other radioactive elements. Note that Akorn will deliver more than 400,000 doses, but the ARS solicitation requests only 100,000 doses, with a possibility for an additional 100,000.
Robert Marsella, senior vice president of San Diego-based Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, a persistent and eloquent critic of the HHS anti-radiation approach said: “The dosing amount [of the Akorn contract] was surprising due to the fact the product has to be delivered the first day of radiation exposure and has to be given intravenously …. And it’s specific to a particular radiation isotope that is not used in all nuclear weapons, so that’s what’s so surprising.”
-read more in this Zack Phillips’s CQ report (sub. req.); read more about the two drugs at Akorn Web site; and see the ARS section of Hollis-Eden Web site
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Got this from http://offgridsurvival.com/shtfsurvivalmanual/ - I like this idea.
Electronic storage is great, for years I have recommended things like survival laptops and tablets. With a good solar charger these devices can last for years in an off the grid environment.
If your anything like most of the survival minded people that come to this site, you probably bookmark and save a ton of good survival articles. While I love electronic devices, when the SHTF you need to have backups of all your valuable survival information.
You need your own SHTF Proof Survival Manual.
Lately I have been saving a ton of how to articles to my NOOK but I don’t stop there. The nook is great for storing survival books and articles but I also started laminating the most important articles and putting them into my own personal survival manual.
For under $40 bucks you can make yourself a good SHTF proof survival binder.
First, you need to buy a good laminator and a pack of lamination sheets.
You can get a Good Laminator on Amazon and a pack of 50 lamination sheets for around $40. This will allow you to put about 400 articles in your personal survival manual.
Second, I condense the articles down so I can fit at least 4 to a page (8 double sided) this gives you roughly 400 articles with only 50 pieces of paper. Remember the lamination adds some weight so you don’t want to go crazy here. Print only those articles that you think you will really need post SHTF.
I usually condense articles down in Microsoft word, or I shrink down specific pages from books so I can fit them into my 4up format. I then 3 ring punch the laminated pages and put them in a good zippered binder to protect them from the elements.
What kinds of articles do I add to my personal survival manual?
My NOOK can pretty much hold everything I need so I fill that up with as much information as I can get. For my Binder I take only the things that I think I will need in a post SHTF world.
Maps, Evacuation Routes and Bug Out Locations
Medical information and first aid instructions
How To articles
Pictures of edible plants
Communication frequency charts, notes and antenna diagrams / formulas
Primitive Skills & instructional materials
Trapping Diagrams
And anything that you may have a hard time remembering
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Once stated, the point is an obvious one, but I must confess one of which I had not thought. Thank you.
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http://offgridsurvival.com/livingoffthegridcrime/
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http://offgridsurvival.com/livingoffthegridcrime/
That's awful.
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Nothing breeds compliance like dependence does.
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Not sure I follow here. Aren't these people as disconnected from the matrix as can be?
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This is what EMP is, and how it might affect the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of people would likely starve to death within a few months. Most vehicles would have their electronics fried and would not operate. No electricity, no phone service, no refrigeration. People on life-saving drugs would not be able to get them in most cases. Hospitals would have no power after their generators failed. It's a nightmare scenario - and one that our Congress has failed to address.
Newt Gingrich is one of the very few politicians who understands this threat and has said he would make protecting against it a priority. To do so would involve "hardening" and shielding the country's electrical grid, as well as mandating "hardened" pulse-immune electronics in vehicles and other electronic devices. Such hardened circuitry exists, but is used in only very few military critical aircraft and computer systems presently. Interestingly - tubes would be unaffected, so if you have a tube-amplified radio for example, it would still operate after one of these pulses. Most vehicles made after about 1968 would cease to operate, however - because they rely on electronic circuitry that would be fried.
Check out this short video:
http://empactamerica.org/videos_featured.php
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Do you guys have "bug-out bags?" Any information on what you stock in them? MREs? Cash? Firearm? Iodine Tablets? Trauma Kit? Aluminum Blankets? Water?
In the case of a national or regional disaster, do you have any special plan on how or where to meet up with loved ones if separated?
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Funny you should ask CW :-D
I went to the SHOT Show last week and purchased or made connection for various items for sale in our catalog in this vein e.g.
*trauma kits
*aluminum blankets
*MRE for long term storage in the home
*related items.
These will begin appearing in our catalog in the coming weeks/months.
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TTT
GM, your post of today on the Money, Gold, Silver thread would fit here as well.
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Good clip from Michael Janich-- very practical!
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Never heard of this one before but I guess it helped. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Lost+snowboarder+snow+warmed+hands+with+full+urine/7723573/story.html#ixzz2FZKLaPlt
P.C. :lol:
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America’s Death Zones: Where NOT To Be When It Hits the Fan
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/americas-death-zones-where-not-to-be-when-it-hits-the-fan/
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I've never understood why people in these areas often don't have underground shelters for tornadoes. Hell - I wouldn't own or build a house without one here in Georgia!
See below:
Mike Adams - May 21, 2013 (NaturalNews)
A mile-wide tornado with 200mph winds tore through the suburbs of Oklahoma yesterday, killing 51 people and broadcasting a rude reminder of the fragility of human life and human civilization. Here at Natural News, our hearts go out to the family members of those killed in the storm, and we hope some lessons can be learned from this that will save other lives in the future.
But wait a second, you can't stop a tornado, right?
Of course you cant. But you can prepare for a tornado, and here's where we get into a discussion that the mainstream media won't dare touch because it's not "politically correct" to have an intelligent discussion about any of this.
But here's the question we need to ask if we're going to save lives: How many of those who were killed in the tornado knew there was a tornado warning in place but did nothing to move to a safe shelter? Obviously this question doesn't apply to all the children who were killed, as they are not responsible for their own actions. (Their parents are.) But how many adults actually took the tornado warnings seriously and sought adequate shelter?
Because here's the simple, raw, undeniable truth of the matter: People who seek shelter vastly reduce their chances of becoming fatalities during any disaster. Tornados and hurricanes, in particular, come with advance warnings. They aren't like earthquakes that suddenly appear without any warning at all. Tornados usually give you minutes or even hours of advance notice. Hurricanes give you days of advance notice.
And yet, even when huge hurricanes are approaching their target, many people deny the danger and take no precautions at all!
Survivability vs. tornadoes is 80% preparedness and 20% luck
To be clear what I'm saying here, you can never control 100% of your risk or outcomes in a natural disaster, but through smart preparedness strategies, you can very often control 80% or more.
Taking tornados as an example, there is a reason why Oklahomans have, for generations, built "storm shelters" where they could retreat to survive an approaching storm. The photo on the right, for example, shows a low-tech, high-survivability storm shelter that can easily be installed in almost any yard.
Storm shelters offer almost 100% survivability against tornados. Tornados cannot penetrate underground, after all. If YOU are underground, even in a small, cramped storm shelter that's just two meters wide and two meters tall, you have an almost 100% chance of emerging from the storm completely unhurt.
Most fatalities in tornados happen because people are killed from flying debris. You might even call it "wind shrapnel." Take a bunch of lumber, aluminum siding, bricks and roof trusses and accelerate them to 200 mph and you have a deadly weapon that will kill almost anyone it touches. But put your body just three feet underground -- in a tornado shelter -- and all that debris flies right past you, harmlessly above your shelter.
America has become a culture of short-term thinkers
Investing in a storm shelter, however, requires forethought. It requires long-term planning, and the culture of America has radically shifted away from long-term planning to short-term thinking. This is evident in our national debt spending, national politics, consumer behavior, education system and everything else.
Housing companies that build homes in Oklahoma, Kansas, Northern Texas and other "tornado alley" zones don't even offer storm shelters. Most home buyers don't want storm shelters because they aren't long-term thinkers. But consider the facts: If you live in Oklahoma, you have to realize the area is going to be struck by devastating tornados sooner or later.
People who buy homes in pine tree forests, similarly, would be insane to believe that forest won't one day burn up all around them. (All forests burn sooner or later.)
People who live in Los Angeles have to be aware they're living in an earthquake zone, and folks who have homes in Florida must certainly realize they are sooner or later going to get hit with category 5 hurricanes.
This isn't rocket science. No one who lives in Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas can claim to have been "caught by surprise" when these repeating natural disasters strike. To live in these areas is to live with the ever-present knowledge that such risks will never go away. My hope is that more and more of these people will take seriously the importance of personal preparedness so that more lives can be saved as these repeating disasters continue to unfold.
Americans rarely seek shelter from storms, but they gladly "shelter in place" when government warns them about terrorists
If you really want to get Americans to take cover and seek shelter, tell them there's an armed teenager running loose in their city, tossing pressure cookers everywhere. The people will immediately and obediently follow orders and seek cover in their homes.
But tell them there's a category 5 hurricane about to strike their city, and they'll ignore the warnings while calling a bunch of friends over for a "hurricane party."
Making matters worse, local governments rarely invest in the construction of buildings that can serve as effective shelters against oncoming storms. Many of the children killed in Oklahoma yesterday, for example, were killed by collapsing roofs of schools.
Read this description from Fox News:
Television footage on Monday afternoon showed homes and buildings that had been reduced to rubble in Moore, which is south of Oklahoma City. Footage also showed vehicles littering roadways south and southwest of Oklahoma City. At the Plaza Towers Elementary School, students were hugging and clinging to the walls of the school as the tornado passed over, KFOR reports. An Associated Press photographer saw several children being pulled out of what was left of the school. The school's roof appeared mangled and the walls had fallen in or had collapsed.
Dare I ask the question: Why didn't that school have a basement for sheltering the children?
The answer is devastatingly simple: Because even local governments in Oklahoma -- where tornados are a predictable repeating threat -- often don't think long-term enough to invest in basement shelters for their own children. If they had, those children could have simply been led into the basement and they would all still be alive today. (Tornados don't rip apart properly-constructed basement shelters.)
Sometimes more people die than should have
My message in all this? In every natural disaster, more people die than should have died. I'm not blaming everyone who died for their own death, because there's always that 20% "luck" factor when it comes to storm and disasters. Sometimes people are literally killed due to no fault of their own. Sometimes people who prepare still get caught by unexpected random events. But across the board, at least 80% of your "risk" in a natural disaster is under your own control.
Is the TV news warning about an approaching tornado? Seek out an underground shelter and stay there until the storm passes.
Is the National Weather Service warning about an approaching hurricane? Evacuate early and get out of the way of the storm.
Worried about earthquakes? Carry emergency supplies in your car, in your basement and even simple items on your person (like a flashlight and seatbelt cutter).
No matter what risks you face in your particular geographic area, there are smart, effective ways to drastically reduce your risk of being victimized by disasters.
Nearly all "natural" disasters are repeating, predictable events that occur over and over again in the same geographic areas. People who build homes in flood plains should never be surprised when their homes flood. People who build homes in forests should never be surprised when those forests burn. People who live in Oklahoma should always be prepared for tornados.
Did you know that the simple act of crawling into a roadway culvert can save your life from a tornado? Even lying in a ditch is often a far better strategy than hiding inside a building that can't handle the wind loads. There are many, many ways to protect yourself and your family members from tornados, hurricanes and other natural disasters. But you've got to take the idea of preparedness seriously...
... and most people simply won't do that. It takes too much effort to plan ahead.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/040418_Oklahoma_tornado_shelters.html#ixzz2U39IHQlv
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Following up here on the possibility of an EMP from outer space in the near future referenced on a thread today in the P&R forum: Discussion about what to do in a suddenly non-electrical world would be relevant , , ,
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Following up here on the possibility of an EMP from outer space in the near future referenced on a thread today in the P&R forum: Discussion about what to do in a suddenly non-electrical world would be relevant , , ,
For 99 percent of the population, dying a horrific death is about the only option in that scenario.
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Well then, what do we do to be in the 1%? :-D
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Don't live in densely populated areas to start.
LA would become "The Road" with Palm trees after about 72 hours.
Rural areas with water and agriculture are the places with the best chances for survival.
Well then, what do we do to be in the 1%? :-D
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I am thinking a goodly stock of turkey jerky, beans, dried fruits, etc plus tons of water and gasoline would be a good start as would the firepower to defend it.
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I'd suggest you ask some of your military contacts what would be involved in attempting to defend your home and family in that scenario. Especially when the cavalry wouldn't be coming.
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Oh, I have :wink:
That said, it seems to me prepping for the no-electricity scenario (btw would cars work without their electronics?) takes more than shooting away the mob looking to loot my finite supplies.
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[W]ould cars work without their electronics?
This is one of the main reasons that several prepper types recommend an older (but reliable, obviously) vehicle.
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http://www.futurescience.com/emp/emp-protection.html
Getting Prepared for an
Electromagnetic Pulse Attack
or Severe Solar Storm
by Jerry Emanuelson
Futurescience, LLC
© 2009-2013 Jerry Emanuelson
The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
This statement is commonly known as Clarke's Third Law. Many people have heard this quotation, but few people really think about its implications.
We now live in a world that is so completely immersed in advanced technology that we depend upon it for our very survival. Most of the actions that we depend upon for our everyday activities -- from flipping a switch to make the lights come on to obtaining all of our food supplies at a nearby supermarket -- are things that any individual from a century ago would consider magic.
Very few people in industrialized countries do work that is not directly assisted by electronic computers, although that computerized assistance is often quite invisible to the average person. Few people think about things such as the fact that whenever we buy some food item at a supermarket (and many others are buying the same item), the next time we go to that same supermarket, they still have about the same supplies that they had before. There are invisible infrastructures all around us that are made up of advanced technology. Most of us just take the magic for granted.
Few people stop to consider what would happen if, in an instant, the magic went away. If our advanced technology were suddenly and completely destroyed, how would we manage to survive? A nuclear EMP could make the magic go away. I hope it never happens, and I don't think that it is at all inevitable. It makes no sense, however, to be blind to the danger. It is both much less likely to happen -- and also less likely to have a catastrophic impact -- if, both as a civilization and as individuals, we are prepared for an attack on our advanced technology. A nuclear EMP would be a seemingly magical attack upon our advanced technology, the technological infrastructure upon which our lives depend.
Among all of the kinds of electromagnetic disturbances that can occur, though, it is important to keep things in perspective. It is possible that a nuclear EMP may never happen where you live. On the other hand, a severe solar storm that will destroy most of the world's power grids appears nearly inevitable at this point. Protection against the damage of a severe solar storm could be done easily and rather inexpensively by the electrical utilities; however it is not being done, and there are few signs that it will be done. A severe solar storm poses little threat to electronics, but would take down the most important power grids in the world for a period of years. This is a special problem in the United States, and is a severe threat in the eastern United States. So, more important than preparing for a nuclear EMP attack is preparing for all of the ramifications of a severe solar storm which would cause an electrical power outage that would, in most areas, last for a period of years. Most standby power systems would continue to function after a severe solar storm, but supplying the standby power systems with adequate fuel, when the main power grids are offline for years, could become a very critical problem.
In the mid-20th century, electricity was regarded as a convenience. By the end of that century, electricity had become something that most people literally cannot live without for more than a few weeks. This profound change has happened so gradually that very few people have even noticed.
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This is a page about some of the things that individuals can do to prepare for an electromagnetic pulse attack. I'm an electronics engineer who has been thinking about the EMP problem for more than 3 decades. I even have an ancient Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 4P that has been retrofitted with a complete electromagnetic shield. It's just a personal antique, useless for anything but a personal reminder of how long I've been thinking about this problem. That early-model personal computer didn't even have a hard drive.
I've spent much of my career working with radio and television transmitters on high mountaintops where there is a lot of lightning and other kinds of severe electromagnetic transients. Many engineers who spend their careers working in fairly benign electromagnetic environments don't realize the fragility of our technological infrastructure. On this page, I'm going to concentrate on a nuclear EMP attack, but much of this also applies to natural events such as intense geomagnetic storms resulting from extremely large solar storms.
The threat of a sudden EMP attack that causes a widespread catastrophe is certainly nothing new. Consider this Cold War era quotation from a widely-read and highly-respected publication more than 30 years ago: "The United States is frequently crossed by picture-taking Cosmos series satellites that orbit at a height of 200 to 450 kilometers above the earth. Just one of these satellites, carrying a few pounds of enriched plutonium instead of a camera, might touch off instant coast-to-coast pandemonium: the U.S. power grid going out, all electrical appliances without a separate power supply (televisions, radios, computers, traffic lights) shutting down, commercial telephone lines going dead, special military channels barely working or quickly going silent." -- from "Nuclear Pulse (III): Playing a Wild Card" by William J. Broad in Science magazine, pages 1248-1251, June 12, 1981.
The situation would be much worse today than in 1981 due to our profound and ever-increasing dependence upon electricity and electronics for the basic maintenance of our lives. In addition, the last remnants of the pre-electrical infrastructure, and the knowledge of how to use the components of that infrastructure, is slowly and completely disappearing. Some people have said that the long-term loss of the power grid would send us back to the 19th century. That belief is quite false because we have no 19th century infrastructure and very little 19th century knowledge. A long-term loss of the power grid would send us back at least 500 years.
First: Another brief note about severe solar storms (and similar natural events), and then I'll get back to nuclear EMP. Solar storms would primarily affect the power grid, and are not likely to harm things like computers. Also, solar storms would only disrupt communications temporarily, and would not be likely to cause direct harm to communications equipment (except for satellites). An extremely large solar storm, though, would induce geomagnetic currents that could destroy a substantial fraction of the very largest transformers on the power grid (possibly over much of the world). If this happened, electric power loss due to a large solar storm would be out for a period of years and possibly decades. Unlike nuclear EMP, such a solar storm is an eventual inevitability.
The last solar storm that could have caused this level of damage happened in 1859, before the power grid was in place (although in 1921 a large solar storm, of briefer duration than the 1859 event, occurred which affected a much smaller area of the planet). The power grid has only been in place for a fraction of one percent of human history, and a really large solar storm (of the size and duration of the 1859 event) has not happened in that time. There is a general assumption that any solar event that is similar to, or larger than, the 1859 solar superstorm will simply never happen again, although there is no justification for such an assumption -- in fact, we know that this assumption is false. There is a good possibility that such a large-scale solar storm will happen in this century. If it happens in the current situation without adequate spares for our largest transformers, a large part of the worldwide power grid (including 70 to 100 percent of the United States power grid) will be down for years.
A 2008 study by Metatech found that the time required to obtain a replacement for any one of the 370 or so largest transformers in the United States was 3 years. In a solar superstorm that affects vulnerable areas of the entire world, delivery times could easily be much longer. The United States, which for many years had no capability to manufacture those transformers (and which is just beginning to regain that capability), will be at the end of a very long waiting line. Since such a expansion of transformer manufacturing capability requires a lot of electrical power, the capability cannot be developed after an electromagnetic catastrophe. The capability has to be developed before there is an actual critical need. In the past two years, two United States companies have begun the process of expanding into the large transformer business, but it will take a considerable length of time before a reasonable number of spare transformers can be manufactured.
Because of the inevitability of a large solar superstorm, we have to accept the fact that the current electric power grid upon which our lives depend is only a temporary infrastructure. This temporary infrastructure has served us very well, and we now have entrusted our very lives to it.
The fact that the electric power grid began as a convenience, but has become a necessity for sustaining life, is both one of the most beneficial, and one of the most dangerous, facts of 21st century existence. We do not know how long the current power grid will last; but if it not replaced by a robust permanent infrastructure in time, hundreds of millions of people will die when the electric power grid collapses simultaneously in many countries. How such a collapse occurs is very well known, and the methods to either prevent it, or to have spare transformers in place to fairly quickly repair it, are also well known. Although these preventive measures would not be terribly expensive, they would take some time to put into place; and those things have never been done.
Provisions for insuring islands of power production within the country that would prevent millions of deaths could be put in place fairly quickly, and much less expensively, but this also has never been done -- or, until recently, even been seriously considered, except by the few scientists and engineers who have seriously studied the fragility of the electric power grid. There are finally signs, in 2013, that this situation is beginning to change, but the process is very slow.
I am repeatedly asked about "faraday cages" for solar storms and protection of automobiles against solar storms. I must repeat that this is an area where solar storms and nuclear EMP are very different. Solar storms only produce something similar to the E3 component of nuclear EMP. "Faraday cages" are not relevant for solar storms for anyone at ground level (unless you are planning to launch a satellite). Solar storms will not destroy your car, (at least not any of the solar storms that have occurred in the past million years). If you own an electric car, though, it may be wise to avoid charging it during an active geomagnetic storm.
Many people who say that they have off-the-grid power systems, however, are interconnected to the power grid in order to sell their excess power back to the grid. From an EMP or solar storm standpoint, this presents the worst of all possible worlds. Such an interconnection exposes a so-called off-the-grid system to all of the dangers of the power grid.
Even though solar storms primarily affect the power grid, customers can communicate the importance of EMP and solar storm protection to their local electric utilities. Devices such as the SolidGround system made by Emprimus can be installed by local electric companies on all of their large transformers that are connected to very long lines.
Although a major electromagnetic disturbance that would destroy large parts of the electrical grid is almost inevitable in the next century, it is important to keep things in the proper perspective. There is a reasonable chance that people will come to their senses in time, and have the electrical power grid protected before such an event happens. Although a hardened power grid does not seem likely in the near future, the dangers to the power grid are becoming much more widely known.
Another encouraging trend is the fact that far more people are prepared to be self-sufficient for at least a few weeks than was the case just a few years ago. The greater the number of people who have made at least minimal preparations for a disaster, the smaller will be the overall impact of the disaster.
Even apartment dwellers on a very low income can have a level of preparedness that will be of significant help. By buying an extra can of reasonably nutritious canned food every week or two, you can build up a food reserve -- before you realize it -- that will last you for at least a week or two, and probably much longer. A week or two of "breathing room" after a disaster can give you great peace of mind and allow you to stop and think and plan for a future course of action (while the unprepared are all in a great panic). It is even possible that some additional help will arrive after a week or two. The most important thing is to store at least a two-week supply of drinking water. There are many plastic containers of all sizes that can be stored in a closet that won't take up an excessive amount of space.
One kind of convenient containers for water storage in small spaces are the one gallon polypropylene plastic bottles that are used for Arizona brand teas. Although these plastic containers are marked with the Resin Identification Code 5 or 7, the Arizona Beverage Company web site states that (at least, as of July 2012 and earlier) the plastic does not contain any bisphenol-A in the container, so they should be safe for long-term water storage. These one-gallon plastic containers with screw-on plastic lids should be a convenient method of water storage for many people. Do not keep the water in storage for a very long time without refreshing your supply with new water occasionally, though. There are larger containers that are made for long-term water storage for those who have the storage space for a longer-term emergency water supply.
What just happened???
The most important piece of information you can have after any sort of unusual electrical event is information about what happened. If there is a bright flash in the sky at the same time that the power goes off, and you've been worried about nuclear EMP, your first reaction may be to assume the worst. There are many other events, however, that can cause a power outage.
If it is a nuclear EMP, though, you will want to know about it right away, and the local radio and television stations are going to all be off the air. Most of the internet will also be down. There might be some telephone service if you are very lucky, but anyone that you would call probably won't know any more than you. The only way that you will get any timely information will be by listening to broadcasts originating on other continents using a battery-operated shortwave radio.
If you have a shortwave radio, it is likely to be knocked out by the EMP unless it is adequately shielded. To be adequately shielded, it needs to be kept inside of a complete metallic shielded enclosure, commonly known as a faraday cage, and preferably inside nested faraday cages. A faraday cage is an total enclosure made out of a good electrical conductor such as copper or aluminum. (Steel also works well, but it is more difficult to make a total enclosure with steel.) Large faraday cages can get extremely complicated. For small portable electronics, though, completely covering the electronic equipment in aluminum foil makes an adequate faraday cage around the equipment. The foil covering needs to be complete, without any significant gaps. Wrap the device in plastic or put it in an insulated box before wrapping the covered device in foil. (Otherwise, the foil may simply conduct the EMP energy into the device more effectively.) A single layer of foil may not be adequate. In order to enclose the equipment in a nested faraday cage, place the foil-covered device in a plastic bag, such as a freezer bag, and wrap that bag completely in aluminum foil. If you really want to protect the equipment against a large EMP, add another layer of plastic and foil. The layer of plastic needs to be the thickest plastic bags that you can easily find. (They don't need to be terribly thick, but do try to find some heavy-duty bags.)
Just adding many layers of foil directly on top of foil won't do as much good, due to what is called "skin effect." I won't bother to explain skin effect here, but you can look it up if you're curious. Don't worry too much about skin effect, though. I only mention it here because many people have the misconception that when it comes to shielding, the thicker the better -- and this is definitely not true after a certain thickness is reached. Layers of shielding separated by insulation works much better. As a practical matter, though, wrapping with 2 or 3 layers of foil helps to assure that you actually have a good shield around the equipment.
Of course, any antennas or power cords need to be either disconnected or contained completely within the faraday cage.
One question that arises frequently is whether a gun safe or a galvanized trash can makes an effective faraday cage. Technically, it may not be correct to call either of these a faraday cage because they are not constructed of the best electrical conductors. A galvanized metal trash can, though, can be a very effective electromagnetic shield. The interior of the body of the galvanized metal trash can should be lined with some material to electrically insulate items stored inside the container from the metal exterior. (Cardboard probably works better than any other inexpensive material for this. Liners such as plastic trash bags may be too thin for this because of the momentary high voltages that could be induced on the exterior during an actual EMP.) Do not place any insulation at a point where it would interfere with the electrical connection between the metal lid and the metal body of the trash can. It would be a good idea to wrap items placed inside the metal trash can with a layer of aluminum foil in the "nested faraday cage" manner described above. It is important to remember that a galvanized trash can, by itself, is usually an imperfect shield. It may be good enough for many purposes, but the extra layer of shielding provided by aluminum foil on equipment that is stored on the inside may be a critical factor in a severe EMP.
The question about using gun safes as an electromagnetic shield cannot be answered because there are so many variations in construction that would affect the shielding efficiency. In particular, the electrical connection between the door and the rest of the safe is usually not very good. Such a safe probably has some shielding effectiveness, but in most cases, the shielding is very minimal. In general, though, gun safes are nearly useless while properly prepared galvanized trash cans are very effective.
Many people have tried to use metal filing cabinets as electromagnetic shields, but they usually provide very little in the way of shielding effectiveness.
For more about shielding from someone who has spent his career doing electromagnetic shielding, see Donald R. J. White's book on EMP shielding.
You'll need to keep plenty of batteries on hand for your radios. There are some models of shortwave radios that have hand-crank or solar power, but those "emergency radios" that I've tried don't have very good shortwave reception (although, as explained below, many inexpensive shortwave radios could suddenly become very adequate after an EMP event). A common complaint about radios that use hand-crank power is that the hand cranks are not very sturdy, however the radios will continue to function by using conventional battery power (or solar power if it is available.) If you do use the hand crank on an emergency radio, though, do not treat the hand crank too roughly. I still recommend keeping plenty of batteries on hand.
Energizer makes lithium batteries with a 15 year shelf life. Although small batteries were not damaged during the 1962 high-altitude nuclear tests, it would be wise to wrap each sealed package of batteries wrapped in a layer of aluminum foil. Future EMPs may be much larger than the 1962 events. Also, battery technology is evolving and the sensitivity of newer types of batteries to EMP is unknown (although the cylindrical batteries tend to provide a certain amount of shielding just due to the way that they are constructed.). I generally prefer Energizer batteries for cylindrical batteries (AA, AAA, C and D sizes) and Duracell for 9-volt batteries. The 9-volt batteries contain 6 internal cells in series. In the Duracell 9-volt batteries, the cells are spot welded together, whereas most other popular brands use a simple press-fit interconnect for the cells. The Duracell spot-weld method generally makes for a much more reliable connection in this type of battery.
The idea behind having a shortwave radio is to be able to directly receive radio stations on another continent that has been unaffected by the EMP. The radio that I like best of the portable, and not too expensive, receivers is the SONY ICF-SW7600GR. This model is not cheap, but you can usually find it for at least 25 percent below its "list price."
Another good shortwave radio for the price is the Grundig Traveller II Digital G8. This Grundig radio is much less expensive than the SONY ICF-SW7600GR. You can usually find the Grundig G8 for around 50 U.S. dollars. In using the Grundig radio recently, my only complaint was that it seemed to be much more susceptible to electrical noise than many other shortwave radios. Electrical noise is always a problem when listening to distant stations, but, of course, in a post-EMP situation, electrical noise would cease to be a problem.
Grundig also makes a somewhat better radio known as the S350DL, that sells for about 100 U.S. dollars. This radio is larger, and many people find it easier to handle. It also has a number of features, such as bandwidth and RF gain controls, that are very difficult to find on other radios in this price range. The tuning on the S350DL is analog, but it has a digital readout. Some of the annoying aspects of the tuning dial in earliest models of this radio have been corrected in current versions.
The National Geographic Store sells the Grundig S350DL radio, which is pictured at the bottom of this page.
Many people have legitimate complaints about nearly any shortwave radio that can be purchased for less than 300 U.S. dollars. Those complaints are often valid if the radio is to be used frequently in today's high levels of electrical noise and radio frequency interference. In a post-EMP situation, or any situation where the regional electric grid goes down, the situation will be very different.
Many people have bought or kept old vacuum tube radios for use after an EMP attack. Although vacuum tubes are thousands of times more resistant to EMP than transistors (and discrete transistors are much more resistant than integrated circuits), other components of vacuum tubes radios can be damaged by EMP. In fact, vacuum tube radios actually were damaged in 1962 high-altitude nuclear tests. Vacuum tube radios also have the disadvantage of requiring much more power than solid-state radios, and electric power will be a rare commodity after a nuclear EMP. Although a vacuum tube radio would have a high likelihood of coming through an EMP event undamaged as long as it was turned off and not connected to an antenna, a modern solid-state shortwave radio kept inside of a nested faraday cage is the best form of insurance for obtaining information after an EMP event (and it is preferable that the shielded radio also be stored inside a galvanized trash can as mentioned above).
(Many people don't realize that most vacuum tube radios still in existence have an early solid-state device called a selenium rectifier that is quite vulnerable to EMP damage. Although replacement selenium rectifiers are still sold for old radios, they are difficult to find, and you would probably find them to be completely impossible to get after an EMP attack.)
One important misconception about electromagnetic shielding is the common belief that it should be "all or nothing." When it comes to critical small spare items like an emergency radio, it is important to go to some extra trouble to insure the best shielding possible. Simple small nested faraday cages are so simple and inexpensive that you might as well make sure that a few items are very well shielded. When it comes to less critical items, though, such as items that you use frequently, a less-complete electromagnetic shield could easily make the difference between having equipment that survives an EMP and equipment that does not survive. It is a very common misconception that certain items must have military-grade shielding and other items are nothing to worry about at all. Real world electromagnetic disturbances are much more messy than that. (See the either-or myth on the EMP Myths Page.)
A nuclear EMP will severely disrupt the upper atmosphere for a while, so it could be several hours after an EMP before you get decent shortwave reception with any radio, but that will be long before you could get information from any other source. If you're in the United States, you may be able to get emergency information from a local NOAA Weather Radio station. I believe that a few NOAA emergency transmitters are EMP-protected, but most are not. Repairs to many of these transmitters may be able to be made by military personnel, who can also supply emergency power to them for a while, but that emergency power may not last very long. If you're in the United States, though, it is important to have a NOAA Weather Radio. These radios really are inexpensive, and whenever the NOAA transmitters are working, they can provide local information that is critically important. Like your shortwave radio, an emergency NOAA Weather radio needs to be kept in a nested faraday cage until you need it. NOAA Weather Radios could be especially important in the case of a large solar superstorm, where the radios would probably continue to work and give information, even though much of the power grid could be out for years.
Many people severely underestimate the need for information in any kind of a disaster. In recent examples of long-term disasters (such as the breakdown of civilization in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s), many people actually died while undertaking risky activities in order to obtain information. Many 21st century humans have an addiction to information that (although it has greatly improved their standard of living) would cause them to take even greater risks than people did only a generation earlier. The important thing is to think about the importance of information well before any sort of a disaster happens.
If you have a spare laptop computer, it can also be stored in nested faraday cages, just like your radio.
LED and CFL lights: LED lights (and, to a lesser extent, compact fluorescent lights) can be very useful for post-EMP use because of their efficiency at a time when very little electricity may be available. Both LED lights and CFL lights, though, are very sensitive to EMP.
LED lights are solid-state diodes that are made to conduct electricity on one direction only. In the case of LED lights, the LED itself has a very low reverse breakdown voltage. Most LED lights will handle a fairly large voltage spike in the forward direction, but not in the reverse direction. LED lights are currently the most efficient form of lighting that is available. LED lights also can last for a very long time. I know of one case where a device that I built at a television transmitter site in 1980 has some of the older (1970s) type of LED indicator lights that have been operating continuously for more than 30 years.
Compact fluorescent lights can probably be stored without any kind of EMP protection because the base of the light is so small that they are unlikely to pick up enough voltage for the imbedded transistors to be damaged. CFL bulbs are almost certain, however, to be damaged if they are in a socket at the time of an EMP since they have two switching transistors embedded into the base of the CFL. These switching transistors, although they are out of sight, would very likely be damaged by high voltages picked up by any wiring external to the CFL device itself.
Although many LED flashlights are likely to survive an EMP simply because of their small size, the sensitivity of LEDs makes the survival of unprotected flashlights less than certain. Also, some LED flashlights contain additional sensitive circuitry. Because of the importance of having at least one good flashlight when the power grid is down for a long period of time, it would be a good idea to store at least one LED flashlight in a nested faraday shield.
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http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/06/05/survival-tampon/
From the article:
Do me a favor for the next five minutes. Try to forget everything you know about tampons. I know, it’s hard. But pretend that this is the first time you have ever seen or heard of the item below, and it is a new survival product on the market: the Tactical Adventure Medical Preparedness Outdoors Necessity (T.A.M.P.O.N.).
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Prepare Your House and Finances for a Natural Disaster
Start by Creating an Emergency Plan and Checking Insurance
By DANIEL LIPPMAN
You may not be as prepared as you think.
When a storm is bearing down or a wildfire or tornado is approaching, you don't want to be thinking about all the things you should have done to protect your family, house and finances.
So with wildfires raging in parts of the West, and hurricane season in full swing, taking some crucial steps in advance—especially if you live in a region prone to natural disasters—can help you minimize any damage.
"It's imperative to make sure you are prepared," says Thomas Kirsch, a member of the American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council and co-director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins University. "Get things ready to go," he says, with a disaster kit "and the appropriate financial stuff available to you."
1. Make a Plan
Create an emergency plan, detailing where you and family members would meet up after a disaster and how you'd stay in touch. Also designate an out-of-state contact whom people can call if they're unable to get to the meeting spot.
Next, put together a disaster kit and store it in a place all family members can easily access. The disaster kit should include nonperishable food items and water for your family to last 72 hours, a first-aid kit, a flashlight and batteries. Also be sure to keep some cash on hand in case you can't access a bank or ATM.
Ready.gov, which is run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and 72hours.org offer tips and information on creating a disaster plan and kit.
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Rob Shepperson
2. Make Sure You're Covered
The most important financial consideration before any disaster is to find out what your home owners insurance does and doesn't cover—and whether you need to buy supplemental coverage.
Some policies cover replacement cost, meaning the cost to replace your items, while others cover actual cash value, which is replacement cost minus depreciation, says Jeanne Salvatore, a spokeswoman at the Insurance Information Institute.
Roman Suarez, a market claim manager of Allstate's National Catastrophe Team, recommends taking photos or video of the contents of every room. It's also a good idea to keep receipts for valuable items.
Most home owners policies exclude flood coverage. So if you live near water or in a flood zone, consider getting flood insurance. If you have a federally backed mortgage in a Special Flood Hazard Area, flood insurance is a requirement. Other lenders may require it as well.
The majority of flood policies are offered through the National Flood Insurance Program. The average policy runs about $600 a year, according to FEMA, but prices vary depending on the house and an area's risk.
It typically takes 30 days before a flood policy goes into effect, and coverage is capped at $250,000 for a home's structure and $100,000 for contents. If you want additional coverage, you can often buy supplemental flood insurance from a private firm.
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The flood-insurance program pays out lots of claims to people outside of special hazard areas, says FEMA administrator Craig Fugate. On the program's site, FloodSmart.gov, you can plug in your address to see whether you live in a high-risk area and get premium estimates. The site also has information about insurance agents in your area.
Damage from earthquakes is often excluded from home owners policies, but you can purchase a separate policy that covers quakes. An average home quake policy offered by the California Earthquake Authority costs $770 annually, says Chief Executive Glenn Pomeroy.
If you live in a rental, damage to the property itself will be the responsibility of the landlord. But you will be responsible for the replacement of your belongings—from televisions to furniture to clothing.
And renters insurance is often relatively cheap. For instance, a renters policy for the New York area, offered by State Farm, starts at $125 a year for $20,000 in coverage.
3. Store Your Documents
Pedro Correa of Staten Island, N.Y., put documents, jewelry and a list of his home's valuable contents, along with a video documenting them, in a safe in his master bedroom. But when Mr. Correa's house was swept away last October during Hurricane Sandy, the safe was gone.
"We have an apartment now and I have a detailed list of everything I own now, but it's in a safety-deposit box," says the 37-year-old corrections sergeant.
Items that should be kept in a safe-deposit box or other secure location include: house deeds or rental leases, a list of insurance policies and the policy numbers, bank documents, birth and marriage certificates, passports, copies of drivers licenses, stock and bond certificates, powers of attorney and wills, as well as valuable jewelry.
You also should make digital copies of these documents (and family photos) and use a service like Dropbox, Microsoft's SkyDrive or Google GOOG +0.30% Drive to put them on the cloud, a network of servers that lets you access your data from any computer.
4. Prepare Your Home
How you prepare and protect your house and property will, of course, depend on the disaster you are most at risk to experience.
In areas prone to wildfires, you should create a "defensible space" around your house by trimming trees and brush and clearing dead vegetation. You can reduce your roof's vulnerability to fire by removing debris from the gutters on a regular basis. If you're thinking of replacing the roof, keep in mind that materials such as tile, metal and slate are much safer than asphalt and wood.
For homes where tornados occur, it's important to build a safe room that can withstand destructive winds and flying debris.
In earthquake zones, go through the house and secure vulnerable objects (say, bookcases or grandfather clocks) to the walls.
Depending on how old your house is, you may want to consider building shear walls under the first floor, which will absorb the quake force and transfer it to the ground, says Howard Cook, co-owner of Bay Area Retrofit in Albany, Calif. Mr. Cook says such a project typically costs around $6,000.
In hurricane areas, FEMA recommends buying a generator, covering a home's windows and making sure your sump pump works. Greg Nelson, a contractor in Tampa, suggests having plywood panels made to fit all your windows so you can easily slip them on.
Regardless of where you live, consider hiring a home inspector see what parts of your home may be vulnerable. Bill Jacques, president of the American Society of Home Inspectors, says an inspection typically runs around $300 to $400.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_5P90qIzUw
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_5P90qIzUw
An interesting, and pretty short, discussion of why the Nat Geo program is unlikely to happen and the author's view of why cyberwar is a faulty description:
http://www.whiteoliphaunt.com/duckofminerva/2013/10/duck-and-cover-when-cyber-doomsday-comes.html
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Well, that was pretty superficial. Dog Brothers Inc. existed before the internet, but, like most/lots of businesses, we are now highly dependent on the internet. The internet going out of order would be devastating to our business.
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It was short, but I disagree that it was superficial. There are plenty of links that add to the discussion. It is worth noting that there is much divide about whether an internet shutdown would dramatic. And it is worth noting that despite all the discussion of cyberwar/terrorism/attacks there hasn't really been much one happen yet.
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I gather that the Chinese have infiltrated our networks rather deeply. Picture a conflict over the Spratleys or Taiwan or , , , and then we begin having some real mysterious problems , , ,
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Do you know?
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http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0510/Exclusive-potential-China-link-to-cyberattacks-on-gas-pipeline-companies
Exclusive: potential China link to cyberattacks on gas pipeline companies
Those analyzing the cyberspies who are trying to infiltrate natural-gas pipeline companies have found similarities with an attack on a cybersecurity firm a year ago. At least one US government official has blamed China for that earlier attack.
By Mark Clayton, Staff writer / May 10, 2012
In this photo taken Monday, May 7, sections of pipe are stretched out across the landscape for a new natural-gas pipeline in Converse County north of Douglas, Wyo.
Investigators hot on the trail of cyberspies trying to infiltrate the computer networks of US natural-gas pipeline companies say that the same spies were very likely involved in a major cyberespionage attack a year ago on RSA Inc., a cybersecurity company. And the RSA attack, testified the chief of the National Security Agency (NSA) before Congress recently, is tied to one nation: China.
Three confidential alerts since March and a public report on May 4 by the Department of Homeland Security warn of a "gas pipeline sector cyber intrusion campaign," which apparently began in December. That campaign, against an undisclosed number of companies, is continuing, DHS said in the alerts, which were first reported by the Monitor.
"Analysis of the malware and artifacts associated with these cyber attacks has positively identified this activity as related to a single campaign," DHS said in its public statement May 4. It also described a sophisticated "spear-phishing" campaign – in which seemingly benign e-mails that are actually linked to malicious software are sent to specific company personnel in hopes of gaining access to corporate networks.
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Along with the alerts, DHS supplied the pipeline industry and its security experts with digital signatures, or "indicators of compromise" (IOCs). Those indicators included computer file names, computer IP addresses, domain names, and other key information associated with the cyberspies, which companies could use to check their networks for signs they’ve been infiltrated.
Two independent analyses have found that the IOCs identified by DHS are identical to many IOCs in the attack on RSA, the Monitor has learned. RSA is the computer security division of EMC, a Hopkinton, Mass., data storage company.
Discovery of the apparent link between the gas-pipeline and RSA hackers was first made last month by Critical Intelligence, a cybersecurity firm in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The unpublished findings were separately confirmed this week by Red Tiger Security, based in Houston. Both companies specialize in securing computerized industrial control systems used to throw switches, close valves, and operate factory machinery.
"The indicators DHS provided to hunt for the gas-pipeline attackers included several that, when we checked them, turned out to be related to those used by the perpetrators of the RSA attack," says Robert Huber, co-founder of Critical Intelligence. "While this isn't conclusive proof of a connection, it makes it highly likely that the same actor was involved in both intrusions."
Mr. Huber would not release details about the indicators, because access is restricted by DHS.
Jonathan Pollet, founder of Red Tiger Security, has arrived at similar conclusions.
"The indicators from each source are a match," says Mr. Pollet, whose company has extensive experience in the oil and gas industry. "This does not directly attribute them to the same threat actor, but it shows that the signatures of the attack were extremely similar. This is either the same threat actor, or the two threat actors are using the same ‘command and control' servers that control and manage the infected machines."
Among several DHS indicators with links to the RSA campaign, Huber says, is an Internet "domain name" – a humanly recognizable name for a computer or network of computers connected to the Internet. Scores of computer-server "hosts" associated with that domain were already known to have participated in the RSA attack, Critical Intelligence found.
Alone, the domain-name finding was strongly suggestive. But along with many other indicators he's checked, a link between the RSA and pipeline-company attacks is clear, Huber says.
"I don't think there's much question that the attackers going after the pipelines are somehow connected to the group that went after RSA," he says.
So who went after RSA?
Gen. Keith Alexander, chief of US Cyber Command, who also heads the NSA, told a Senate committee in March that China was to blame for the RSA hack in March 2011.
The infiltration of RSA by cyberspies is widely considered one of the most serious cyberespionage attacks to date on a nondefense industry company. Its SecurID system helps to secure many defense companies, government agencies, and banks. Information stolen from RSA has since been reported to have been used in attacks against defense companies Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and L-3 Communications.
Cyberspies attacked RSA using a spear-phishing e-mail that contained an Excel spreadsheet with an embedded malicious insert. Similarly, the gas-pipeline attacks have seen spear-phishing e-mails with an attachment or tainted link.
Nothing in cyberespionage is for sure, Huber and Pollet say – especially since identifying perpetrators is difficult or sometimes impossible because of the layers of digital obfuscation that’s possible for attackers. But as other security firms check and confirm the findings, it could reveal important things, the two experts agree.
First, it would show that the same group hacking the gas-pipeline companies is also interested in high-tech companies that have a focus on cryptography and cybersecurity.
Second, the question arises: Why did DHS provide the indicators to the industry, but didn’t identify the apparent link between the gas-pipeline and RSA attacks?
Finally, there's also the question of why DHS officials, in their alerts, requested companies that detected the intruders to only observe them and report back to DHS – but not act to remove or block them from their networks. Some speculate that blocking the intruders would have short-circuited intelligence gathering. (A DHS spokesman refused comment on the issue.)
This last point has raised consternation among security personnel at some pipeline companies. For a year now, big cybersecurity companies like McAfee have had digital defenses that could be deployed against the RSA hack. In fact, they might have been at least partially effective against the new pipeline hack, Huber says.
Has DHS’s advice to only observe the intruders come at the expense of allowing the cyberspies to become more deeply embedded on company networks?
Marty Edwards, director of the DHS Control Systems Security Program, which issued the alerts, referred questions to public-affairs officials.
“DHS’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team [ICS-CERT] has been working since March 2012 with critical infrastructure owners and operators in the oil and natural gas sector to address a series of cyber intrusions targeting natural gas pipeline companies," Peter Boogaard, a DHS spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.
"The cyber intrusion involves sophisticated spear-phishing activities targeting personnel within the private companies," he continued. "DHS is coordinating with the FBI and appropriate federal agencies, and ICS-CERT is working with affected organizations to prepare mitigation plans customized to their current network and security configurations to detect, mitigate and prevent such threats.”
But if anything, questions are growing about China's role either directly or through its cyber militia in vacuuming up proprietary, competitive data on US corporate networks – as well as possibly mapping critical infrastructure networks.
Sen. Carl Levin (D) of Michigan queried Alexander about "China's aggressive and relentless industrial espionage campaign through cyberspace" and asked him to provide some unclassified examples. Alexander's first named example was RSA.
"We are seeing a great deal of DOD-related equipment stolen by the Chinese," he replied. "I can't go into the specifics here, but we do see that from defense industrial companies throughout. There are some very public ones, though, that give you a good idea of what's going on. The most recent one, I think, was the RSA exploits."
"The exploiters," he continued, "took many of those certifications and underlying software" from RSA, rendering the security system insecure until updated.
Chinese officials regularly pour cold water on such accusations. A Pentagon press conference on Monday with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Liang Guanglie was intended to show US-Chinese cooperation on cybersecurity. But Liang took the opportunity to condemn claims that Chinese cyberspies are the predominant actors in cyberspying on US networks.
"I can hardly agree with [that] proposition," said Liang, as reported by The Hill's DefCon blog. "During the meeting, Secretary Panetta also agreed on my point that we cannot attribute all the cyberattacks in the United States to China."
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http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/chinas-preoccupation-with-asymmetric-war
China's Preoccupation with Asymmetric War:
Lessons Learned from the Hezbollah-Israeli War
by Ehsan Ahrari
Download the full article: China's Preoccupation with Asymmetric War
Chinese leaders have decided long ago that, in the wake of a conflict, their military cannot fight and win a battle against the U.S. military on a force-on-force basis. However, that reality was not going to discourage a country whose strategic culture has produced original thinkers of the caliber and reputation of Sun Tzu and Mao Zedong.
In answering this question, one has to remind onself of a few famous quotes of Sun Tzu: "All warfare is based on deception." "If your enemy ... is in superior strength, evade him..." and "Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant." One must also recall Unrestricted War, published in 1999, by two senior Chinese colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. It stated that, when faced with a technologically superior enemy, it is "necessary to dare to completely upset the order of the cards in one's hands and reorganize them in accordance with the needs of war and the interests of a nation."
The conventional wisdom regarding China's asymmetric war doctrine is that it is "aimed at finding key vulnerabilities in American forces." In the post-9/11 era, that doctrine is focused not only on military-related susceptibilities, but also on other weak points. In this context, one has to keep in mind Chang Mengxiong's concept of "assassin's mace" ("shashou jian"). Using the analogy of acupuncture for fighting asymmetric wars, this concept argues that even a superpower like the United States has a great number of points of vulnerabilities. If the focus of asymmetric attack is on those points, then the military giant can be brought down by a "weak" power like China.
Download the full article: China's Preoccupation with Asymmetric War
Ehsan Ahrari is Professor of Security Studies at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) in Honolulu, Hawaii. This essay was originally prepared as part of his testimony at the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission in March 2007.
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http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/35179/25-new-scada-flaws-emerge-in-critical-infrastructure
25 New SCADA Flaws Emerge in Critical Infrastructure
21 October 2013
Researchers have found at least 25 new vulnerabilities in SCADA software, which controls critical infrastructure that, among other things, keeps clean water and reliable heat and electricity flowing to houses.
Critical infrastructure systems – many of them aging and outdated – continue to show fraying around the edges, opening up the power grid, water plants, industrial control systems and more to nefarious activity, despite the high-profile reporting on it and scrutiny from the Obama Administration, which continues to carry out information-sharing initiatives as laid out in February’s Executive Order on the subject.
The problem is that many of the systems are connected in ways that are considered outdated, and often get overlooked as threat vectors. “SCADA systems are potentially more vulnerable to exploitation given that, when they were developed, internet use was yet to explode,” explained Ross Brewer, vice president and managing director for international markets at LogRhythm, in an email. “The focus of control system security has therefore been typically limited to physical assets, rather than cybersecurity."
Researcher Chris Sistrunk and Adam Crain, which are part of a consulting firm called Automatak, began a fact-finding mission last April using a custom “fuzzer” for detecting vulnerabilities in SCADA systems. They have since found 25 flaws that could allow attackers to do everything from causing power outages to blocking operator visibility into substation operation so that, unbeknownst to the NOC, it starts making decisions based on outdated operational information. That, in turn, paves the way for a shielded attack.
While most of the known issues would not render servers completely unable to control utilities, some of them do allow for complete hijacking, they said. A buffer overrun vulnerability is the most serious issue that they’ve found so far, which would allow arbitrary code to be injected remotely, so that attackers would “own” the server.
Automatak has submitted its findings to the US Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control System-CERT, and has notified the vendors. Nine of the potential exploits have been patched so far.
“While cyber-attacks on SCADA systems may be rare when compared to the extraordinary number of incidents involving web applications or enterprise IT networks, the damage they are able to cause is disproportionately severe,” said Brewer. “The software is primarily responsible for critical operations and national infrastructures and, if exploited, could seriously damage the operations of electricity, water and power suppliers. The potential implications of a hack are terrifying and could not only result in the loss of data, but can also cause damage to physical assets and in certain scenarios, the loss of life.”
Some of the most notorious cyber-attacks in recent years – such as the Stuxnet and Flame viruses – have been SCADA breaches. And just last November one researcher uncovered 25 vulnerabilities in just a few hours. But adding insult to injury is the fact that traditional perimeter cybersecurity tools, such as anti-virus software, have proven their shortcomings time and time again.
“The Flame virus, for example, avoided detection from 43 different anti-virus tools and took more than two years to detect,” Brewer said. “Instead, organizations must have tools in place that allow them to identify threats, respond and expedite forensic analysis in real time.”
Brewer advocates continuous monitoring of all log data generated by IT systems in order to automatically baseline normal, day-to-day activity across systems and multiple dimensions of the IT estate – to identify any and all anomalous activity immediately.
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cyberwar/vulnerable/scada.html
What are the special vulnerabilities of SCADA systems?
SCADA systems -- Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems -- were primarily designed to be devices that sat off on their own, looked at a particular thing, like a gas pipeline, or something in an oil refinery, or something like that, and simply report information back, originally over a telephone line. Now, the main vulnerabilities of SCADA systems are built from the fact that we've taken something of very limited control, and we have now connected it up to an Internet that is accessible by many other people. So more people have access to the SCADA system than was ever intended to have.
Also, to make SCADA systems cost-effective in the future, we no longer build special purpose operating systems for them. We put on standard vendor operating systems, with additional vulnerabilities that are well known. So now we have systems that are well understood, connected to the Internet, but still providing a rather critical function in the element itself.
I liken it very much to my own thermostat at home. My thermostat at home is protected, because I keep my front door locked, so no one can come in and change my heat around. If I add a wireless element to my thermostat, suddenly I can control it from my computer. I can turn the heat up when I'm at work, so the house is warm when I get home. I can understand every month exactly what my fluctuations are in temperature.
Unfortunately, because it's wireless, someone could sit outside my house, now, in the car, with a laptop, and at 4:00 in the morning turn off my heat, in the dead of winter. Or I could be away on vacation, and they could turn it off so my pipes would freeze. SCADA systems are a lot like this. We had walls around SCADA systems for a long time, and we have poked holes in those walls to give us more cost effective access to those SCADA systems, with all of the vulnerabilities that that implies.
And the trend?
If you follow the financial trend, things are going to get more and more common, not specialized, because then we can reuse all of the things that are commercially available. SCADA systems will control more and more complex operations, because, after all, a SCADA system that you put in place can do something much more easily than an operator, who has to go from place to place, can do that same function. So it's going to be involved more in our critical operations.
Center for Strategic and International Studies
There's a lot made of SCADA systems, that it's a potential target.
Let me use a model here that's a little unusual in answering the SCADA question -- the model of air attacks. Because you saw very similar arguments made by the initial strategists of air power. This new technology would allow them to fly over enemy forces and cripple economies, bring nations to their knees with just a few well-placed attacks. This is what people started thinking in about 1919.
And, of course, in the 1920s, it didn't work. In the 1940s, people tried it. It didn't work. It wasn't until the advent of nuclear weapons that the air power scenario really began to make sense, that you could think about this as a logical way to attack people. That doesn't mean that people didn't experiment with it or that they didn't try it, or that people didn't think about how to defend against it.
Now, at a much different level, we're looking at the same thing with SCADA systems and the Internet and computer networks. Right now, we aren't that interconnected. People use SCADA systems, but they use them in a whole variety of idiosyncratic matters. They buy different systems. They connect them differently. They connect differently to the physical structure. So understanding how a SCADA system works for one company doesn't give you a benefit in attacking another company. It's very difficult. And we just aren't as vulnerable as some people would make up.
Could that change over time the way air power changed over time? I think it will. And that's why we need to pay attention to what the defenses are, how we build secure networks now. But that doesn't mean that terrorists are going to be able to turn off the water supply tomorrow or that they're going to be able stop the U.S. from moving forces to Iraq. SCADA is just not as interconnected with either the physical infrastructure or with other companies' networks as people make out. So the vulnerability isn't there.
Let me give you a concrete example? People looked really hard with this Slammer worm that came up a couple weeks ago -- it came up in early February -- to see if it had affected any SCADA systems or if there were any reports of attacks on SCADA systems that led to infrastructure being crippled. Today, no reports of any successful attacks. So I'm kind of doubtful about the ability to penetrate a SCADA system, and then turn that to some real-world advantage. People can penetrate SCADA, but they have a hard time turning off the lights. ...
The reason that SCADA is particularly dangerous is that SCADA is a standard approach towards control systems that pervades everything from water supply to fuel lines. The problem is that most SCADA systems are running Microsoft operating systems, and if you are running a Microsoft operating system, you have a target painted on your forehead.
What do you mean?
Out of the box as a basic install or even with a sophisticated system operator, making Windows secure, any of the Windows varieties, Windows NT or Windows 2000, which are your common SCADA platforms, is an incredibly sophisticated and complicated task. It is not the kind of thing that you can do easily or simply, and it is not the skill base normally available to a low-end infrastructure job. It is the kind of skill base that's available at the high end of the transnational. It's the kind of thing that we bring to the table and that Joe Power Supply Company doesn't have available to them.
The National Security Agency, the U.S. agency responsible for protecting the cyber infrastructure, has many, many hundreds of pages of how to close the security holes in Windows NT. I mean, it's a huge volume of material. But the knowledge it would take even to follow their step-by-step instructions is very, very high. And so the number of vulnerabilities are extreme and the knowledge base necessary to protect it is too much for your ordinary group.
Security expert, KEMA Consulting
My very, very, very strong feeling is if and when we get hit, we will never know why we were hit. All we will know is breakers are opening, valves are closing, certain things are happening. But we won't have a clue as to why.
And I'll give you an example. This is not a cyber attack but just an example. I believe it was July '99, there was a pipe break in Bellingham, Washington. A backhoe was digging, hit a gasoline line, broke the line, spilled a couple hundred thousand gallons of gasoline in a creek, caught fire and killed, I think, maybe, about three people. I remember even seeing it on the news. As an industry, I'm not trying to belittle the industry, those things happen. We haven't marked things well enough.
It was either late November or early December of 2002, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a final report on the pipe break in Bellingham. Turns out the backhoe didn't break the line. The backhoe weakened the line. There was a gas SCADA there. The gas SCADA had about 18 to 20 minutes to take action to keep that line from breaking. It didn't. This wasn't a hack. Here was a clear case where a control system played a part in a major catastrophe. For whatever reason, I cannot tell you, for two and a half years, the industry for whatever reason was kept oblivious of the fact that a SCADA could have played a part. This wasn't a hack.
How can we, as an industry, do anything when information like that is available and we're not even made aware of it? Like I say, it was not a hack but it's obvious the control system was involved.
There are an awful lot of not just control systems suppliers, but system integrators, people that offer courses in how to use control systems. You don't have to be an owner of a company or a utility person or a refinery person or anybody else, to take these courses. You have to just pay. Because very easily, you could just be somebody who's going to be a contract engineer to do it.
What's the worst case scenario?
Don't know. The ability to get unauthorized access to these systems is well proven. I won't say well documented, because this is not something you're going to pick up a magazine and say, "Here it is," but it's well proven.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/9880195/Chinas-cyber-war-machine-threatens-us-all.html
China’s cyber-war machine threatens us all
It’s good news that India has signed a new security pact with Britain – Beijing’s power in cyberspace grows by the day
By Con Coughlin
8:06PM GMT 19 Feb 2013
233 Comments
When David Cameron agreed a new cyber-security pact with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh yesterday, he was not just seeking to protect the highly sensitive personal data of millions of British households that is stored by Indian call centres and computer servers. He was looking to establish a vital strategic alliance that will help to protect our shores from the mounting threat posed by China’s formidable cyber-warfare machine.
Of course, protecting individuals’ private information is vital if Britain is to maintain its enviable position as a world leader in online services. Untold damage can be done to our personal finances, and reputation, if access to such information falls into the wrong hands: it is estimated that a significant proportion of the £73 billion Britain loses to fraud each year is down to fake internet activity.
Yet the threat to our wellbeing caused by internet crime is relatively manageable when compared to the havoc that would be wrought if Britain were to fall victim to a sustained attack by China’s growing army of cyber-warriors. In the unlikely event of a deterioration in relations between our countries, experts believe the Chinese have the capacity to launch a “clickskreig” against the British mainland, knocking out vital elements of our national infrastructure, such as power stations and cash machines, simply by pressing a button. Even in today’s more amicable climate, Chinese firms and state agencies have been implicated in a host of hacking attacks, on targets ranging from leading industrial and technology firms, to the Pentagon and other US government agencies, to the New York Times and Coca-Cola.
So the threat posed by Beijing’s growing expertise in this unprincipled art is certainly deserving of the Prime Minister’s attention – and that of the rest of our security establishment. For the truth is that China is now firmly established as the world’s leading perpetrator of cyber-attacks.
The origins of the country’s love affair with this unprincipled form of warfare can be traced back to the Nineties, when the Chinese military, realising that it could never match the Americans in purely conventional terms, developed the concept of unrestricted warfare, whereby its enemies could be defeated without recourse to direct military confrontation. The two People’s Liberation Army (PLA) colonels who produced the new manual, whose title literally translates as “Warfare Beyond Bounds”, initially envisaged resorting to tactics such as economic upheaval and terrorism to achieve their aims.
From the late 1990s, however, this doctrine has been rigorously applied to cyberspace, where the Chinese have become adept at using the internet to defend their interests, as well as using their expertise for industrial espionage, by stealing technological know-how from Western competitors. Such is the official obsession with maintaining the country’s position as the world’s pre-eminent power in cyberwarfare that the PLA regularly holds national hacking competitions, in which the winners are rewarded with an immediate commission into the organisation’s highly secretive cyber-command.
Maintaining supremacy in the dark of arts of industrial espionage has almost become a national obsession, with frequent accusations that state agents have resorted to blackmail and murder. The family of Shane Todd, a 31-year-old Californian electronics engineer, are convinced that his unexplained death in Singapore last summer is related to sensitive research he was conducting for a Chinese company into hi-tech chemicals.
What is beyond doubt is that, whether through fair means or foul, hardly a day passes without the Chinese being implicated in a high-profile hacking scandal. Major American defence contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon’s main supplier, have been attacked on numerous occasions; in Britain, Chinese hackers have been accused of creating a new “spyware” program codenamed Beebus, which has been used to attack companies involved in the development of the next generation of drone aircraft.
William Hague – who as Foreign Secretary oversees the work of Britain’s intelligence agencies, including the GCHQ listening post at Cheltenham – is said by Whitehall insiders to be incensed by China’s conduct, and has told Cabinet colleagues that Britain must make its displeasure known to Beijing, even if it means upsetting the lucrative trade ties between the countries.
Mr Hague’s ability to claim the moral high ground will have undoubtedly have been helped by a report this week in the New York Times (which saw its computer network come under sustained attack after publishing an investigation into the financial affairs of the relatives of Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister). It has identified a 12-floor office building in Shanghai as the headquarters of the PLA’s Unit 61398, which is said to be responsible for launching hundreds of cyber-attacks against US government institutions.
Whether Mr Cameron’s agreement with the Indians will help to counter this threat, only time will tell. But the gravity of the situation has become increasingly clear. For years, China has consistently denied any involvement in such skulduggery. Today, those protestations of innocence ring less true than ever.
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On point to the conversation between BD and me yesterday GM, thanks. Would you please post this on the Cyberwar thread as well? TIA.
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http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/american-blackout-a-real-life-nightmare-nearer-than-you-think?f=must_reads
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I first saw this on the Huffington Post, so I apologize for once again for making a mistake, but this may interest you:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH2NahLjx-Y[/youtube]
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I would not have thought of that :-)
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If you were stuck in this,
http://m.ksl.com/index/story/sid/27951404?mobile_direct=y
would you have some of these in your vehicle?
http://dogbrothersgear.com/Survival-Gear/
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I was astonished to read that anyone could survive 16 months at sea (the first report I read). Now it is 13 or 14 months and I was even more astonished to see his picture a few days after he was rescued. I don't recall ever seeing someone look so good after over a year at sea eating fish turtles and birds.
This is definitely a Ripley's believe it or not story:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/marshall-islands-castaway/castaway-gets-haircut-n22586
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2675798/Hundreds-European-US-energy-firms-hit-Russian-Energetic-Bear-virus-let-hackers-control-power-plants.html
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Please post on Cyberwar thread as well. TIA.
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The REAL Pandemic Threat: BioBombers
Hope for the Best -- Prepare for the Worst
By Mark Alexander • August 6, 2014
"A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." --James Madison (1792)
The 24-hour news recyclers have lately devoted a lot of airtime to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and concerns about its spread to the U.S.
In recent weeks, more than 1,300 Africans have been infected with the deadly virus, and most of them have died. There would likely not be much coverage of this regional epidemic if not for the fact that two "humanitarian workers" (read: heroic Christians), an American doctor and nurse, are infected with the virus and have been transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has assured Americans that, while Ebola is deadly in each of its variant forms -- it is much like AIDS or HIV -- transmission requires substantial direct contact with an infected person. Of course, given that in the last three months the CDC's stellar status was tarnished by reports that its personnel were very careless with some deadly pathogens -- including anthrax, avian flu and smallpox -- it's understandable many Americans question CDC's assessment of the Ebola risk.
The fact is, CDC's risk assessment regarding the threat of an Ebola epidemic in the U.S. is correct. There is, however, right now, a very real pandemic threat posed by what we can call "BioBombers."
BioBombers are Islamist "martyrs" who, instead of strapping on a bomb and detonating themselves in a crowded urban area, become human hosts for virulent strains of deadly contagions. Once infected, they fly into the U.S. legally and park themselves in major airport hubs around the nation for days, where they can infect others traveling across country whose symptoms may take days to manifest -- which is to say others unknowingly become hosts and spread the virus to a much wider circle in their communities and work places.
For historical background, the greatest mortal threat to indigenous American populations when 15th- and 16th-century European explorers arrived was not from armed conflict with other native peoples; it was from European strains of diseases for which they had no immunity. The reverse was also true -- many Europeans suffered from American diseases.
In the 19th century, of the estimated 620,000 deaths recorded in the War Between the States, more than 430,000 died from "camp diseases." When soldiers and support personnel from different regions of the country congregated in camps, those who arrived with a virulent strain of influenza or other contagion quickly passed it on to others, and the consequences were devastating.
In the 20th century, there were 5.1 million combatant deaths in the four years of World War I, but the 1918 H1N1 influenza virus, commonly referred to as the "Spanish Flu," infected an estimated 500 million people globally, including even those in remote Pacific and Arctic regions. Indeed, as many as 75-100 million people died in that pandemic -- up to five percent of the world's population, in two years.
In World War II, disease in the Pacific campaign claimed far more casualties than combat.
So how have we avoided another devastating Spanish Flu pandemic?
We've learned how to restrain the spread of these diseases because of our notable early detection of outbreaks and well-rehearsed preventive measures to contain and isolate the infected. (Early detection and containment is critical when dealing with bacterial and viral infections.)
We have learned a lot from managing outbreaks. In 1976, a bacterial contagion called Legionnaires' disease claimed 29 victims in Philadelphia. More recently, a viral SARS outbreak killed 775 people in 37 countries, most of them in Asia. There have also been recurring concerns about "bird flu," which has been spreading worldwide since 2003 and claimed its first victim two years ago in Canada.
There are also inoculation programs that have helped eliminate the spread of disease, and treatment is much better now than it was in the early part of the 20th century.
But pathogens such as these are decimating if health care providers are slow to recognize the symptoms and correctly diagnose the disease. They can spread quickly if not properly reported to the CDC for entry into its early warning and response protocols. Fortunately, dangerous strains of H5N1 influenza and other flu viruses have not adapted, or mutated, into dramatically more virulent and deadly strains.
But there are plenty of artificially engineered bio-warfare viral strains that, if released into urban population centers, would overwhelm medical facilities and claim millions of casualties. The prospect of bio-terrorism, particularly a simultaneous attack across the nation from a cadre of BioBombers, would quickly overload health care service providers and exhaust pharmaceutical reserves. In the event of such an attack, the CDC's epidemic early warning detection map would not merely blink with one or two markers -- the entire board would light up, and the probability of containment would be lost.
In fact, the possibility of such an attack was the impetus last week for the largest bio-terrorism drill in New York City's history.
So, how real is the threat?
The primary symmetric deterrent to weapons of mass destruction in warfare between nation states is the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. But in asymmetric warfare, where Islamic martyrs serve as surrogates for states like Iran, the MAD doctrine is of little deterrence.
The prospect of another catastrophic attack on our homeland by asymmetric terrorist actors is greater now than it was in 2001, and the reason is as plain as it was predictable. But the impact of BioBombers on continuity of government and commerce will be far greater than 9/11.
In his first annual address to the nation in 1790, George Washington wrote, "To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." The eternal truth of those words is plainly evident today.
Indeed, as our nation's erstwhile "community organizer" leads our nation's retreat from its post as the world's sole superpower, the inevitable consequences have been dramatic. Of greatest concern now is the resurgence of the enemies of Liberty, most notably al-Qa'ida jihadists in the wake of the Middle East meltdown (AKA, Arab Spring) in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Jordan, and now the disintegration of Iraq and the conflagration in Gaza.
At present, all eyes are on the unabated rise of the nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran, a major benefactor of worldwide Islamic terror. Iran could eventually put a compact fissile weapon into the hands of Jihad surrogates with the intent of detonating that weapon in a U.S. urban center.
But the scope and consequences of a coordinated attack by Islamic BioBombers is far greater than that of a nuclear attack. The impact on continuity of government and commerce will be far greater than the 9/11 attack.
So if the threat of a catastrophic bio-terrorism attack has increased, and if the CDC and our homeland security apparatus are not properly prepared to respond to such an attack (the response to Hurricane Katrina comes to mind), then what can be done?
Fact is, there is a lot you can do to protect yourself and your family in the event of a biological attack on our nation with a little knowledge, preparation and not much expense -- and that preparation will also suffice for other types of emergencies.
The bedrock foundation of survival is individual preparedness and being prepared is not difficult. The primary means of protection in a pandemic is sheltering in place. But the Web is flooded with all kinds of preparedness and overwhelming advice from doomsday preppers. But your Patriot Post team has prepared a one-stop reliable reference page with basic instructions and advice.
As a resource to communities across the nation, we convened a knowledgeable team of emergency preparedness and response experts in 2012, including federal, state and local emergency management professionals, and specialists from the fields of emergency medicine, urban and wilderness survival, academia, law enforcement and related private sector services. They compiled basic individual preparedness recommendations to sustain you and your family during a short-term crisis. The result is a Two Step Individual Readiness Plan that enables you to shelter in place in the event of a local, regional or national catastrophic event, including a pandemic.
The most likely scenario requiring you to shelter in place would be the short-term need to isolate yourself from chemical, biological or radiological contaminants released accidentally or intentionally into the environment. (This could require sheltering for 1-7 days.)
But in the event of a bio-terrorism attack setting into motion a pandemic or a panic, you must be prepared to isolate yourself and your family from other people in order not to contract an illness. The best location to shelter in place during such an event is in your residence, and the length of time required could be 1-6 weeks.
Be prepared.
1. Link to our Disaster Preparedness Planning resource page.
2. Link to our Two Step Individual Readiness Plan
Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis
Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ObupY-pVFs&app=desktop
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http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150128-how-to-survive-a-disaster
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/14/cybersecurity-expert-be-afraid-america-be-very-afraid.html
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After watching "Backcountry" "Reverant" and "Bear" , 3 bear movies
I looked this up:
Forget about outrunning a bear
Climbing a tree is only good if you have enough time and can get 33 feet or more up. Brown bears are good climbers and grizzlies can climb to a lesser degree
If you are being approached don't try to run but stand your ground . Use the pepper spray
If you are attack fight back with whatever weapon you can with a black bear and aim for face eyes snout.
If it is a grizzly better to play possum and curl up in a fetal position and cover your body and neck and head as best you can
Or if you are a city boy like me - stay in the city. :-)
http://www.mountainnature.com/wildlife/bears/bearencounters.htm
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After watching "Backcountry" "Reverant" and "Bear" , 3 bear movies
I looked this up:
Forget about outrunning a bear
Climbing a tree is only good if you have enough time and can get 33 feet or more up. Brown bears are good climbers and grizzlies can climb to a lesser degree
If you are being approached don't try to run but stand your ground . Use the pepper spray
If you are attack fight back with whatever weapon you can with a black bear and aim for face eyes snout.
If it is a grizzly better to play possum and curl up in a fetal position and cover your body and neck and head as best you can
Or if you are a city boy like me - stay in the city. :-)
http://www.mountainnature.com/wildlife/bears/bearencounters.htm
You might want to examine the number of people killed by bears in N. America and compare it to the loss of life from murder in your geographical area. Pretty sure you are in more jeopardy from bipeds in your city.
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After watching "Backcountry" "Reverant" and "Bear" , 3 bear movies
I looked this up:
Forget about outrunning a bear
Climbing a tree is only good if you have enough time and can get 33 feet or more up. Brown bears are good climbers and grizzlies can climb to a lesser degree
If you are being approached don't try to run but stand your ground . Use the pepper spray
If you are attack fight back with whatever weapon you can with a black bear and aim for face eyes snout.
If it is a grizzly better to play possum and curl up in a fetal position and cover your body and neck and head as best you can
Or if you are a city boy like me - stay in the city. :-)
http://www.mountainnature.com/wildlife/bears/bearencounters.htm
You might want to examine the number of people killed by bears in N. America and compare it to the loss of life from murder in your geographical area. Pretty sure you are in more jeopardy from bipeds in your city.
You can forget outrunning one. It's better to stand your ground. I used to live in bear country, and have seen them whilst running downhill, jump completely across a two lane road EASILY, and cross a 50 meter field in about two seconds. I haven't seen one in a tree, but they do climb, and for the love of God, never get between a sow and her cubs. You'll die if you do.
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Correction to my own post: I wrote "brown" bears. I meant "black" bears are good climbers.
" for the love of God, never get between a sow and her cubs. You'll die if you do."
In 'Reverent' he got between the cubs and the mother.
Leonard Dicaprio did survive but that is Hollywood. He made the mistake of trying to fight back a second time after the bear appeared to leave him alone when he thought he was no longer a threat. Bear came back at him which sounds like that is what a grizzly would do. So best to play dead (if you are not already dead).
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Correction to my own post: I wrote "brown" bears. I meant "black" bears are good climbers.
With a black bear, hide quietly behind an apple tree and hope he stops for the apples. Grizzly and polar bears are scary creatures. You have a better chance out-swimming a Greenland shark (top speed 1.5 mph). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark
Bear spray is available at outdoor stores. Very nasty stuff. Too late if you're reading this and the bear is already charging you. I saw a self defense ad one time saying that 'mace is nice if you have one attacker. For an ally full of attackers try bear spray'. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Frontersman-Bear-Spray-9.7oz/21684332
Be careful with wind direction...
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What Doug said was key.... about the bear spray, and yes....black bears are the only ones I've heard of in trees.
Still... just like avoiding stupid people, places, doing stupid things... another maxim is "proper prior planning prevents p.ss poor performance."
If you're going into bear country, short of a plane crash, you'd best have a way to defend yourself. Bear spray is awesome. Handguns don't cut it. I lived and worked in Alaska for ten years, and everyone I know carries their longarm and a secondary while out, but the secondary is basically worthless. I also used to have a cabin in Pine Mountain Club, California, which is a hippie-liberal haven rife with black bears, and any serious hiker/outdoorsman, at a minimum carries bear spray.
If confronted, it is best to either stand your ground, or back away slowly while facing the animal until you can get to safety (that doesn't mean lose sight of the animal). If attacked, play dead, because you're not going win, even with a black bear. The tracks I've seen on my property that I had there, and the size compared to a human, are just huge. The tracks measured easily 8 inches across (no fishing stories)....it measured every inch of that, with claws about 3 inches long. It would take a man's head right off.
The 7 "P's." Don't go otherwise.
Here is a black bear paw print example:
(http://bchuntingblog.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/bear-paws/blackbearpaw.jpg)
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Yes that is one big paw.
I don't think I could win an arm wrestling match against that.
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This part seems a surprise:
' “Playing dead” doesn’t work with black bears, but it signals to grizzly bears that you aren’t a threat.'
I thought possum works with both?
When even the bear spray doesn't work.......it is time to become very religious:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/03/drenched-in-blood-montana-man-tells-tale-of-surviving-two-run-ins-with-same-grizzly-bear/
All in all I feel safer in Harlem even though I may not be.
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Sometimes one will see recommendations of bear spray for use on human predators. While yes it is quite a bit more effective than regular pepper spray, be apprised that legal issues may well ensue. After all, it is "bear spray" not "human spray".
PS: Linda "Bitch" Matsumi is currently reviewing a download we shot of her in Montana last year. Dealing with bears (she literally sometimes has tracks in her front yard AND she has a toddler :-o) is one of the issues she deals with in the download.
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Sometimes one will see recommendations of bear spray for use on human predators. While yes it is quite a bit more effective than regular pepper spray, be apprised that legal issues may well ensue. After all, it is "bear spray" not "human spray".
PS: Linda "Bitch" Matsumi is currently reviewing a download we shot of her in Montana last year. Dealing with bears (she literally sometimes has tracks in her front yard AND she has a toddler :-o) is one of the issues she deals with in the download.
The last OC class I took said that spray labeled for animal use can't be used on humans without violating federal law. Unless you are Hillary Clinton.
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:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-hacks-into-ukraine-power-grids-may-be-a-sign-of-things-to-come/
Ukraine power grids a sign of things to come for U.S.?
Russian hacking to influence the election has dominated the news. But CBS News has also noticed a hacking attack that could be a future means to the U.S. Last weekend, parts of the Ukrainian capitol Kiev went dark. It appears Russia has figured out how to crash a power grid with a click.
Last December, a similar attack occurred when nearly a quarter of a million people lost power in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine when it was targeted by a suspected Russian attack.
Vasyl Pemchuk is the electric control center manager, and said that when hackers took over their computers, all his workers could do was film it with their cell phones.
“It was illogical and chaotic,” he said. “It seemed like something in a Hollywood movie.”
williams-ukraine-grid-pkg-new-013.jpg
Vasyl Pemchuk in the control center that was hacked
CBS News
The hackers sent emails with infected attachments to power company employees, stealing their login credentials and then taking control of the grid’s systems to cut the circuit breakers at nearly 60 substations.
The suspected motive for the attack is the war in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists are fighting against Ukrainian government forces.
But hackers could launch a similar attack in the U.S.
“We can’t just look at the Ukraine attack and go ‘oh we’re safe against that attack,’” said Rob Lee, a former cyberwarfare operations officer in the U.S. military, investigated the Ukraine attack.
williams-ukraine-grid-pkg-new-01.jpg
Rob Lee
CBS News
“Even if we just lose a portion, right? If we have New York City or Washington D.C. go down for a day, two days, a week, what does life look like at that point?” he said.
He said that some U.S. electric utilities have weaker security than Ukraine, and the malicious software the hackers used has already been detected in the U.S.
“It’s very concerning that these same actors using similar capabilities and tradecraft are preparing and are getting access to these business networks, getting access to portions of the power grid,” he said.
In Ukraine, they restarted the power in just hours. But an attack in the U.S. could leave people without electricity for days, or even weeks, according to experts. Because, ironically, America’s advanced, automated grid would be much harder to fix.
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http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/columns/paul-harasim/survive-the-hacking-power-grid-it-s-time-stockpile-food-water-and-medicine
To survive the hacking of a power grid, it’s time to stockpile food, water and medicine
Paul Harasim
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Heather Murren, the wife of Jim Murren, chairman and CEO of MGM Resorts International, doesn’t fit the stereotypical image of a survivalist or prepper.
Her hair and makeup is just so. Instead of fatigues, she prefers designer wear. She lives in a mansion, not a cave or a shack in the forest.
But when she talks about what she learned as a member of the Commission on Enhancing National Cyberesecurity, what she has to say often sounds much like something we’ve generally thought of as coming from the lips of a backwoods, paranoid, tobacco chewin’, gun totin’, doomsday conspiracy theorist.
It’s time, she says, for Americans to stockpile food, water, medical supplies and other essential everyday items. She says she’s talked to representatives with the American Red Cross and urged them to get the word out to people.
The reason is simple: The nation’s electric power grid is susceptible to cyberwarfare.
Should hackers shut down much of the electrical grid and the critical infrastructure accompanying it, we would have to live for an extended period of time without much of what we now take for granted.
Murren notes experts believe Russia hacked Ukraine’s power grid twice in the past year.
Forget having heat or air conditioning. Water couldn’t be pumped into most homes. ATMs, debit and credit cards wouldn’t work. There would be no banking or air traffic control or traffic lights or Internet. Pharmacies couldn’t dispense medicine. Gas stations couldn’t pump. Say adios to commerce for days or weeks or even months.
“Hacking of the power grid is a significant concern,” said Murren, appointed last year by President Obama to the commission that recently released its report to the nation.
“We can recover from a natural disaster faster than a cyberattack, ” she said. ” When Hurricane Sandy hit we could bring people from throughout the country to help out. But if there’s a cyberattack on the grid in that same region we couldn’t send people from other places because they all use other computer systems. They won’t know the system, what to do.”
What makes Murren’s comments all the more compelling is that they are delivered in the crisp, authoritative, unemotional tone of a Wall Street financier, which she was before moving to Las Vegas.
“Americans should be very concerned,” she stressed.
More people seem to be with each passing day. You can even find directions on the Internet about how to make the water in a swimming pool safe for drinking in an emergency.
While what commission members have to say is in the spotlight today because Russian hacking to influence the presidential election has dominated the news, the observations made on cybersecurity four years ago by then-U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta are no less riveting.
“We know foreign cyberactors … are targeting the computer control systems that operate chemical, electricity and water plants … We know of specific instances where intruders have successfully gained access to these control systems. We also know they are seeking to create advanced tools to attack these systems and cause panic, destruction and even loss of life.”
Murren said more urgency is needed toward cybersecurity, both in government and private industry.
“Technology tends to be viewed by business management as a silo,” she said. “But cyber now touches everything. New board guidelines suggest that at least one board member should have cybersecurity knowledge and that the full board should receive a presentation annually on the subject of cybersecurity. Most businesses don’t do this.”
On the other hand, she said government has too often made businesses go it alone and not played a critical role in coordinating a well-thought-out national digital security system.
She said an appropriate response by the American government to foreign-sanctioned cyberware must be worked out.
“When does it constitute an act of war?” she said.
Murren said the country can’t wait any longer to enact a workable security system.
“Failures in cybersecurity leading to theft of intellectual property are extraordinarily costly … Left unchecked, it can cost us our economic strength and global leadership. Some estimates put the theft of intellectual property — airplane schematics, drug formulas, etc., at $300-$350 billion per year.”
Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Monday in the Health section. Contact him at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273. Follow @paulharasim on Twitter
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http://www.zerodaysfilm.com/
I don't agree with every point in the film, but it is a very important movie.
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Just bought a shit load of good-for-thiry-years food.
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https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-gain-switch-flipping-access-to-us-power-systems/
HACKERS GAIN DIRECT ACCESS TO US POWER GRID CONTROLS
IN AN ERA of hacker attacks on critical infrastructure, even a run-of-the-mill malware infection on an electric utility’s network is enough to raise alarm bells. But the latest collection of power grid penetrations went far deeper: Security firm Symantec is warning that a series of recent hacker attacks not only compromised energy companies in the US and Europe but also resulted in the intruders gaining hands-on access to power grid operations—enough control that they could have induced blackouts on American soil at will.
Symantec on Wednesday revealed a new campaign of attacks by a group it is calling Dragonfly 2.0, which it says targeted dozens of energy companies in the spring and summer of this year. In more than 20 cases, Symantec says the hackers successfully gained access to the target companies’ networks. And at a handful of US power firms and at least one company in Turkey—none of which Symantec will name—their forensic analysis found that the hackers obtained what they call operational access: control of the interfaces power company engineers use to send actual commands to equipment like circuit breakers, giving them the ability to stop the flow of electricity into US homes and businesses.
“There’s a difference between being a step away from conducting sabotage and actually being in a position to conduct sabotage ... being able to flip the switch on power generation,” says Eric Chien, a Symantec security analyst. “We’re now talking about on-the-ground technical evidence this could happen in the US, and there’s nothing left standing in the way except the motivation of some actor out in the world.”
Never before have hackers been shown to have that level of control of American power company systems, Chien notes. The only comparable situations, he says, have been the repeated hacker attacks on the Ukrainian grid that twice caused power outages in the country in late 2015 and 2016, the first known hacker-induced blackouts.
The Usual Suspects
Security firms like FireEye and Dragos have pinned those Ukrainian attacks on a hacker group known as Sandworm, believed to be based in Russia. But Symantec stopped short of blaming the more recent attacks on any country or even trying to explain the hackers' motives. Chien says the company has found no connections between Sandworm and the intrusions it has tracked. Nor has it directly connected the Dragonfly 2.0 campaign to the string of hacker intrusions at US power companies—including a Kansas nuclear facility—known as Palmetto Fusion, which unnamed officials revealed in July and later tied to Russia.
Chien does note, however, that the timing and public descriptions of the Palmetto Fusion hacking campaigns match up with its Dragonfly findings. “It’s highly unlikely this is just coincidental,” Chien says. But he adds that while the Palmetto Fusion intrusions included a breach of a nuclear power plant, the most serious DragonFly intrusions Symantec tracked penetrated only non-nuclear energy companies, which have less strict separations of their internet-connected IT networks and operational controls.
As Symantec's report on the new intrusions details, the company has tracked the Dragonfly 2.0 attacks back to at least December of 2015, but found that they ramped up significantly in the first half of 2017, particularly in the US, Turkey, and Switzerland. Its analysis of those breaches found that they began with spearphishing emails that tricked victims into opening a malicious attachment—the earliest they found was a fake invitation to a New Year's Eve party—or so-called watering hole attacks that compromise a website commonly visited by targets to hack victims' computers.
Those attacks were designed to harvest credentials from victims and gain remote access to their machines. And in the most successful of those cases, including several instances in the US and one in Turkey, the attackers penetrated deep enough to screenshot the actual control panels for their targets' grid operations—what Symantec believes was a final step in positioning themselves to sabotage those systems at will. "That’s exactly what you’d do if you were to attempt sabotage," he says. "You’d take these sorts of screenshots to understand what you had to do next, like literally which switch to flip."
And if those hackers did gain the ability to cause a blackout in the US, why did they stop short? Chien reasons that they may have been seeking the option to cause an electric disruption but waiting for an opportunity that would be most strategically useful—say, if an armed conflict broke out, or potentially to issue a well-timed threat that would deter the US from using its own hacking capabilities against another foreign nation's critical infrastructure. "If these attacks are from a nation state," Chien says, "one would expect sabotage only in relation to a political event."
The Ukrainian Precedent
Not every group of hackers has shown that kind of restraint. Hackers now believed to be the Russian group Sandworm used exactly the sort of access to electricity control interfaces that Symantec describes Dragonfly having to shut off the power to a quarter million Ukrainians in December 2015. In one case they took over the remote help desk tool of a Ukrainian energy utility to hijack engineers' mouse controls and manually clicked through dozens of circuit breakers, turning off the power to tens of thousands of people as the engineers watched helplessly.
Operations like that one and a more automated blackout attack a year later have made Russia the first suspect in any grid-hacking incident. But Symantec notes that the hackers mostly used freely available tools and existing vulnerabilities in software rather than previously unknown weaknesses, making any attribution more difficult. They found some Russian-language strings of code in the malware used in the intrusions, but also some hints of French. They note that either language could be a "false flag" meant to throw off investigators.
In naming the hacking campaign Dragonfly, however, Symantec does tie it to an earlier, widely analyzed set of intrusions also aimed at the US and European energy sectors, which stretched from as early as 2010 to 2014. The hackers behind that series of attacks, called Dragonfly by Symantec but also known by the names Energetic Bear, Iron Liberty, and Koala, shared many of the same characteristics as the more recent Dragonfly 2.0 attacks, Symantec says, including infection methods, two pieces of malware used in the intrusions, and energy sector victims. And both the security firm Crowdstrike and the US government have linked those earlier Dragonfly attacks with the Kremlin—a report published by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI last December included the group on its list of known Russian-government hacking operations.
Symantec says it has assisted the power companies that experienced the deepest penetrations, helping them eject the hackers from their networks. The firm also sent warnings to more than a hundred companies about the Dragonfly 2.0 hackers, as well as to the Department of Homeland Security and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is responsible for the stability of the US power grid. NERC didn't immediate answer WIRED's request for comment on Symantec's findings, but DHS spokesperson Scott McConnell wrote in a statement that "DHS is aware of the report and is reviewing it," and "at this time there is no indication of a threat to public safety."
But Symantec's Chien nonetheless warns any company that thinks it may be a target of the hackers to not only remove any malware it has identified as the group's calling card but also to refresh their staff's credentials. Given the hackers' focus on stealing those passwords, even flushing all malware out of a targeted network might not prevent hackers from gaining a new foothold if they still have employees' working logins.
The Dragonfly hackers remain active even today, Chien warns, and electric utilities should be on high alert. Given that the group has, in some form, been probing and penetrating energy utility targets for the past seven years, don't expect them to stop now.
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http://gatesofvienna.net/2017/10/a-bang-followed-by-whimpering-and-silence/
A Bang Followed by Whimpering… and Silence
Posted on October 18, 2017 by Dymphna
EMP blast
Gotta love The Swamp. Now that North Korea (probably) has the capability to fire a missile into our airspace, TPTB have shut down the one governmental organization with the ability to do anything testicular to deter the Fat Boy driving the looming disaster.
Did you think NoKo is going to do something fissionable with its missiles and is going to simply try to “bomb” us? Well, it would seem that’s the intention, but the real problem is the payload on their missiles. All they need is one EMP detonated in our skies (over the East Coast, where lies most of our outdated electrical infrastructure) to send the continent back to say, 1850…and that will mean ninety percent of our population gone within six months or less. One can envision the follow-up: a leisurely walk-through by China. It would be easy-peasy to sort through the pieces of what remained of Canada and the United States.
From The Center for Security Policy [with my emphases — D]:
Inexplicably, just when we need the country’s most knowledgeable and influential minds advising about how to protect against a potentially imminent, nation-ending peril, the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse Threat Commission is being shut down.
For seventeen years under the leadership of President Reagan’s Science Advisor, Dr. William Graham, this blue-ribbon panel has warned that we had to protect our electric grid from just the sorts of EMP attacks North Korea is now threatening to unleash upon us. Successive administrations and the electric utilities have shamefully failed to heed those warnings and take corrective action.
Consequently, we could experience on a national scale the sort of devastating, protracted blackouts now afflicting Puerto Rico. President Trump should give Dr. Graham and his team a new mandate as a presidential commission to oversee the immediate implementation of their recommendations.
This disaster happened at the end of September, while the MSM dithered away on their fiddles about the eeevil Trump. Meanwhile, two men who served on the panel appeared in front of this subcommittee to get the views of the panel into the permanent record, i.e. the Congressional Record. If/when it all goes down, their warnings will still exist, if anyone can access them after an EMP explosion:
STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD
DR. WILLIAM R. GRAHAM, CHAIRMAN
DR. PETER VINCENT PRY, CHIEF OF STAFF
COMMISSION TO ASSESS THE THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES FROM
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) ATTACK
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY HEARING
“EMPTY THREAT OR SERIOUS DANGER:
ASSESSING NORTH KOREA’S RISK TO THE HOMELAND”
Here is an excerpt from that “Statement For the Record” [any emphases are mine — D. The footnotes, which have been omitted here, can be found in the pdf linked at the end of this post]:
During the Cold War, major efforts were undertaken by the Department of Defense to assure that the U.S. national command authority and U.S. strategic forces could survive and operate after an EMP attack. However, no major efforts were then thought necessary to protect critical national infrastructures, relying on nuclear deterrence to protect them. With the development of small nuclear arsenals and long-range missiles by new, radical U.S. adversaries, beginning with North Korea, the threat of a nuclear EMP attack against the U.S. becomes one of the few ways that such a country could inflict devastating damage to the United States. It is critical, therefore, that the U.S. national leadership address the EMP threat as a critical and existential issue, and give a high priority to assuring the leadership is engaged and the necessary steps are taken to protect the country from EMP.
By way of background, the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack was established by Congress in 2001 to advise the Congress, the President, Department of Defense and other departments and agencies of the U.S. Government on the nuclear EMP threat to military systems and civilian critical infrastructures.The EMP Commission was re-established in 2015 with its charter broadened to include natural EMP from solar storms, all manmade EMP threats, cyber-attack, sabotage and Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare. The EMP Commission charter gives it access to all relevant classified and unclassified data and the power to levy analysis upon the Department of Defense.
On September 30, 2017, the Department of Defense, after withholding a significant part of the monies allocated by Congress to support the work of the EMP Commission for the entirety of 2016, terminated funding the EMP Commission. In the same month, North Korea detonated an H-Bomb that it plausibly describes as capable of “super-powerful EMP” attack and released a technical report “The EMP Might of Nuclear Weapons” accurately describing what Russia and China call a “Super-EMP” weapon.
Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Homeland Security has asked Congress to continue the EMP Commission. The House version of the National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision that would replace the existing EMP Commission with new Commissioners. Yet the existing EMP Commission comprises the nation’s foremost experts who have been officially or unofficially continuously engaged trying to advance national EMP preparedness for 17 years.
And today, as the EMP Commission has long warned, the nation faces a potentially imminent and existential threat of nuclear EMP attack from North Korea. Recent events have proven the EMP Commission’s critics wrong about other highly important aspects of the nuclear missile threat from North Korea:
Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea’s nuclear arsenal was primitive, some academics claiming it had as few as [six] A-Bombs. Now the intelligence community reportedly estimates North Korea has [sixty] nuclear weapons.
Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea’s ICBMs were fake, or if real could not strike the U.S. mainland. Now the intelligence community reportedly estimates North Korea’s ICBMs can strike Denver and Chicago, and perhaps the entire United States.
Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea was many years away from an H-Bomb. Now it appears North Korea has H-Bombs comparable to sophisticated U.S. two-stage thermonuclear weapons.
Just six months ago, most experts claimed North Korean ICBMs could not miniaturize an A-Bomb or design a reentry vehicle for missile delivery. Now the intelligence community reportedly assesses North Korea has miniaturized nuclear weapons and has developed reentry vehicles for missile delivery, including by ICBMs that can strike the U.S.
After massive intelligence failures grossly underestimating North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities, [its] number of nuclear weapons, warhead miniaturization, and proximity to an H-Bomb, the biggest North Korean threat to the U.S. remains unacknowledged — a nuclear EMP attack.
North Korea confirmed the EMP Commission’s assessment by testing an H-Bomb that could make a devastating EMP attack, and in its official public statement: “The H-Bomb, the explosive power of which is adjustable from tens of kilotons to hundreds of kilotons, is a multi-functional thermonuclear weapon with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack according to strategic goals.”
As noted earlier, Pyongyang also released a technical report accurately describing a “Super-EMP” weapon.
Just six months ago, some academics dismissed EMP Commission warnings and even, literally, laughed on National Public Radio at the idea North Korea could make an EMP attack.
Primitive and “Super-EMP” Nuclear Weapons are Both EMP Threats
The EMP Commission finds that even primitive, low-yield nuclear weapons are such a significant EMP threat that rogue states, like North Korea, or terrorists may well prefer using a nuclear weapon for EMP attack, instead of destroying a city: “Therefore, terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or military base, they may obtain the greatest political-military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them — or threatening their use — in an EMP attack.”
The EMP Commission 2004 Report warns: “Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas, and designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century.”
In 2004, two Russian generals, both EMP experts, warned the EMP Commission that the design for Russia’s Super-EMP warhead, capable of generating high-intensity EMP fields over 100,000 volts per meter, was “accidentally” transferred to North Korea. They also said that due to “brain drain,” Russian scientists were in North Korea, as were Chinese and Pakistani scientists according to the Russians, helping with the North’s missile and nuclear weapon programs. In 2009, South Korean military intelligence told their press that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop an EMP nuclear weapon. In 2013, a Chinese military commentator stated North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear weapons.
Super-EMP weapons are low-yield and designed to produce not a big kinetic explosion, but rather a high level of gamma rays, which generates the high-frequency E1 EMP that is most damaging to the broadest range of electronics. North Korean nuclear tests, including the first in 2006, whose occurrence was predicted to the EMP Commission two years in advance by the two Russian EMP experts, mostly have yields consistent with the size of a Super-EMP weapon. The Russian generals’ accurate prediction about when North Korea would perform its first nuclear test, and of a yield consistent with a Super-EMP weapon, indicates their warning about a North Korean Super-EMP weapon should be taken very seriously.
EMP Threat From Satellites
While most analysts are fixated on when in the future North Korea will develop highly reliable intercontinental missiles, guidance systems, and reentry vehicles capable of striking a U.S. city, the threat here and now from EMP is largely ignored. EMP attack does not require an accurate guidance system because the area of effect, having a radius of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, is so large. No reentry vehicle is needed because the warhead is detonated at high-altitude, above the atmosphere. Missile reliability matters little because only one missile has to work to make an EMP attack against an entire nation.
North Korea could make an EMP attack against the United States by launching a short-range missile off a freighter or submarine or by lofting a warhead to 30 kilometers burst height by balloon. While such lower-altitude EMP attacks would not cover the whole U.S. mainland, as would an attack at higher-altitude (300 kilometers), even a balloon-lofted warhead detonated at 30 kilometers altitude could blackout the Eastern Electric Power Grid that supports most of the population and generates 75 percent of U.S. electricity.
Or an EMP attack might be made by a North Korean satellite, right now.
A Super-EMP weapon could be relatively small and lightweight and could fit inside North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong-3 (KMS-3) and Kwangmyongsong-4 (KMS-4) satellites. These two satellites presently orbit over the United States, and over every other nation on Earth–demonstrating, or posing, a potential EMP threat against the entire world.
North Korea’s KMS-3 and KMS-4 satellites were launched to the south on polar trajectories and passed over the United States on their first orbit. Pyongyang launched KMS-4 on February 7, 2017, shortly after its fourth illegal nuclear test on January 6, that began the present protracted nuclear crisis with North Korea.
The south polar trajectory of KMS-3 and KMS-4 evades U.S. Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radars and National Missile Defenses, resembling a Russian secret weapon developed during the Cold War, called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) that would have used a nuclear-armed satellite to make a surprise EMP attack on the United States.
Ambassador Henry Cooper, former Director of the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative and a preeminent expert on missile defenses and space weapons, has written numerous articles warning about the potential North Korean EMP threat from their satellites. For example, on September 20, 2016, Ambassador Cooper wrote:
U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) interceptors are designed to intercept a few North Korean ICBMs that approach the United States over the North Polar region. But current U.S. BMD systems are not arranged to defend against even a single ICBM that approaches the United States from over the South Polar region, which is the direction toward which North Korea launches its satellites…This is not a new idea. The Soviets pioneered and tested just such a specific capability decades ago — we call it a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS)…So, North Korea doesn’t need an ICBM to create this existential threat. It could use its demonstrated satellite launcher to carry a nuclear weapon over the South Polar region and detonate it…over the United States to create a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP)…The result could be to shut down the U.S. electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans — as the EMP Commission testified over eight years ago.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is the link to the whole report, fourteen pages long, which was read into the Congressional Record. Takes about twenty minutes to skim.
Here’s the website for The Oversight and Management Efficiency Subcommittee. Scroll down the list of members to see if your Congressman is on that committee. Better yet, write your own Congressman and tell him to get going on this critical issue. He doesn’t have to be a member of that subcommittee to nudge it forward. While you’re at it, send a tweet to Trump.
That commission was extant and active for seventeen years. Yet for some strange reason, it’s been disbanded now that we have two irrational actors on the world stage capable of bringing us to a neck-breaking halt.
At least Maine seems to be aware and active about the problem. Whether it’s past the initial stages of deciding what to do is hard to say, but its preliminary actions show the way forward for other states. States don’t have to wait for the Federal behemoth to move toward safety. They could even act regionally in a co-operative. This is especially important for our vulnerable northeastern corridor.
Here’s where you can find the contact information for your Congressional representative. It would be a good idea to lean on your state representatives, too. Send their assistants the pdf.
This time we can’t say we didn’t see it coming.
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Please post on
a) ACTION Items
b) Nuclear War
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https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical-case-of-the-tin-foil-hat-gun-prepper-15fce7d10437 (https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical-case-of-the-tin-foil-hat-gun-prepper-15fce7d10437)
Thought provoking look at the statistics that at a subconscious level, and at a conscious level may underpin people's desire to prepare for diverse disasters. Solid read.
...
I’m not a writer by trade. I’m a stormwater hydrologist, and in my opinion, a pretty good one. Hydrology is the science of tracking water as it moves through the water cycle, from ocean evaporation through cloud formation, precipitation, groundwater infiltration, runoff, evapotranspiration, riverine hydraulics, and the time series behavior of reservoirs. It is a deep and fascinating field, but one of its most relevant applications to our lives is delineating floodplain boundaries.
...
Let’s quickly walk through this. The chance of flooding, P(F), is 1%, or 0.01. The chance of not flooding, which we notate P(F’), is 100%-1%, or 99%, or 0.99. To see the chance you don’t flood two years in a row, you would have to “not-flood” the first year, and then “not-flood” the second year, so you multiply the two probabilities together, and get 0.9801. The chance of “not-flooding” 30 years in a row is calculated by multiplying the chance of not flooding with itself, over and over, 30 times, which is a power relationship. P(F’)³⁰. That’s 0.7397 chance of 30 consecutive years of no flood, which means a 26% chance of at least one flood.
...
Stepping through this, the average year for colony establishment is 1678, which is 340 years ago. Two qualifying events in 340 years is a 0.5882% annual chance of nationwide violent revolution against the ruling government. Do the same math as we did above with the floodplains, in precisely the same way, and we see a 37% chance that any American of average life expectancy will experience at least one nationwide violent revolution.
This is a bigger chance than your floodplain-bound home flooding during your mortgage.
It’s noticeably bigger.
...
Pretend you’re someone with your eyes on the horizon. What would you be looking for, exactly? Increasing partisanship. Civil disorder. Coup rhetoric. A widening wealth gap. A further entrenching oligarchy. Dysfunctional governance. The rise of violent extremist ideologies such as Nazism and Communism. Violent street protests. People marching with masks and dressing like the Italian Blackshirts. Attempts at large scale political assassination. Any one of those might not necessarily be the canary in the coal mine, but all of them in aggregate might be alarming to someone with their eyes on the horizon. Someone with disproportionate faith in the state is naturally inclined to disregard these sorts of events as a cognitive bias, while someone with little faith in the state might take these signs to mean they should buy a few more boxes of ammunition.
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https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060575609
'Most dangerous' hackers targeting U.S. utilities — report
Blake Sobczak, E&E News reporter Energywire: Friday, June 14, 2019
electric grid substation. Photo credit: DOE/Flickr
A North American Electric Reliability Corp. report finds that a notorious hacking group has engaged in "reconnaissance" activities directed at U.S. electric utilities since late last year. An electrical substation is pictured. DOE/Flickr
Some of the world's most dangerous hackers have zeroed in on the U.S. power sector in recent months, according to a nonpublic alert issued by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. this spring and new research.
The grid regulator sounded the alarm on March 1 with the industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc. over a notorious hacking group known as "Xenotime" in the report. Xenotime has been spotted hitting U.S. electric utilities with "reconnaissance and potential initial access operations" since late last year, the alert said.
The hacking group, infamous for infecting the safety systems of a Saudi petrochemical plant with highly specialized, life-threatening malware two years ago, isn't known to have broken through to the sensitive controls of U.S. power plants or substations.
The fact that the attackers behind the "Triton" malware can switch gears from hacking oil companies to electric utilities is significant, experts say, given the group's sophistication and its suspected ties to Russian intelligence agencies (Energywire, March 7).
"Xenotime remains the most dangerous cyberthreat in the world, with the capability and intent to kill people," said Sergio Caltagirone, vice president of threat intelligence at Dragos. "We've been very proactive at working with hundreds of electric utilities, preparing them with intelligence and defensive recommendations to best defend the U.S. electric grid against an attack from an adversary of this caliber."
Dragos reported last year that Xenotime had expanded the scope of its malicious operations to include U.S. targets, although the firm did not specify which sectors came into the hackers' crosshairs.
Today, the company issued a blog post detailing Xenotime's activity dating back to 2017. After hackers "successfully compromised several oil and gas environments," Xenotime has demonstrated "consistent, direct interest in electric utility operations" spanning North America to the Asia-Pacific region, Dragos said, citing work with unidentified clients. Dragos added that Xenotime remains interested in oil and gas targets, calling the group's foray into a new industry "emblematic of an increasingly hostile industrial threat landscape."
While there's not evidence "at this time" that Xenotime is capable of executing a prolonged attack on utility operations, the hackers' latest efforts are "cause for definite concern," the Dragos post said.
FireEye Inc., which responded to the 2017 Triton infection at the Petro Rabigh petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia, warned earlier this year that the same hackers had claimed at least one new "critical infrastructure" victim (Energywire, April 10). FireEye's report did not clarify whether the latest target saw its safety systems taken offline with Triton malware, which was tailor-made to override the Tricon line of Schneider Electric SE emergency shutdown equipment.
By disabling Tricon systems, the Xenotime hackers cut away a vital safety net from the Petro Rabigh complex, exposing workers there to potential explosions or chemical poisoning if the plant drifted outside normal operating conditions.
U.S. electric utilities have many of the same Schneider Electric safety devices installed at generating plants and some large electric substations, although the Tricon line is more commonly found in the oil, gas and chemicals industries.
The power sector isn't taking chances, and NERC is pushing to divert more resources into the fight against hackers.
The nonprofit grid overseer is seeking millions of dollars in new funding for its Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC), a hub for getting the word out about the latest threats and weaknesses in the grid.
NERC's draft 2020 budget would set aside nearly $31 million for the E-ISAC — a 13% increase from this year — even as it trims spending outside the center.
The boost is part of a long-term strategy to upgrade the E-ISAC into a "world-class intelligence" nerve center for the power sector, according to NERC budget documents.
'They might not be hiding anything'
The NERC report on Xenotime occurred in the same week that Larry Bugh, chief security officer at ReliabilityFirst Corp., shared an eye-catching statistic at a grid reliability meeting in Pittsburgh: U.S. utilities haven't suffered a single cyber incident since at least 2015.
The day before Bugh's March 6 presentation, an unnamed electric utility in the western U.S. reported a cyber event that disrupted grid operations spanning Utah, Wyoming and California. The case — separate from the Xenotime alert — didn't cause blackouts, and sources later said it was likely an automated denial-of-service attack with a simple fix.
Bugh, as chairman of the Security Metrics Working Group at NERC, is looking to answer basic questions about the U.S. grid's vulnerability to such threats, be they basic DOS attacks or more sophisticated attempted intrusions like those from Xenotime.
At another meeting of NERC's Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee in Orlando, Fla., last week, participants pointed out that the power sector still lacks a comprehensive picture of its cyberdefenses.
Officials are still hoping to settle fundamental questions vexing Bugh's team: How often do physical and cybersecurity incidents strike? How many actually interrupt electricity service? Are gaps in utilities' digital defenses growing wider?
"My guess is that NERC and E-ISAC don't have the answers in hand," said Rebecca Slayton, an associate professor at Cornell University who has studied NERC's security strategies in the past. "The other question is, do the utilities even know? They might not be hiding anything and just don't know what's going on in their networks."
NERC, as the federally designated Electric Reliability Organization, sets and enforces physical and cybersecurity rules for large utilities to follow. It has already handed down record-breaking penalties this year for security violations at several major power companies as new critical infrastructure protection standards take effect (Energywire, June 3).
Officials at the E-ISAC, meanwhile, are betting that additional outreach and round-the-clock staffing can entice utilities into sharing more data on cyberthreats barraging their systems. The E-ISAC pledges to keep information fed through its private portal well away from auditors at NERC's regional divisions or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has final say on any fines.
The dual approach has had NERC firing on all grid security cylinders in recent months — ramping up cybersecurity penalties while staffing up the E-ISAC.
NERC is also pursuing ways to extend its view beyond the bulk power grid through the "Neighborhood Keeper" project with Dragos.
That research and development effort, partly funded through the Department of Energy, would offer small power companies the chance to install Dragos' cyberdefense products in exchange for an anonymized stream of data from their systems. Smaller distribution utilities fall outside NERC's purview and don't typically need to share any details on hacking incidents (Energywire, Oct. 2, 2018).
"We are excited about the Neighborhood Keeper prospects, but it's too early to have a good sense of the actual insights," NERC spokeswoman Kimberly Mielcarek said in an emailed statement.
Near hits and misses
NERC is also widening the scope of cybersecurity data it collects from utilities that fall subject to its authority.
After many years of radio silence from big utilities, FERC recently ordered NERC to make changes, concluding that "the current reporting threshold may understate the true scope of cyber-related threats facing the Bulk-Power System" (Energywire, July 20, 2018).
Even as grid specialists in the halls of FERC and NERC's headquarters in Atlanta seek cybersecurity information, intelligence officials claim to have a handle on the extent of the danger.
Dan Coats, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said earlier this year that "Russia has the ability to execute cyber attacks in the United States that generate localized, temporary disruptive effects on critical infrastructure — such as disrupting an electrical distribution network for at least a few hours."
He cited a pair of cyberattacks on Ukraine's power grid, in 2015 and again in 2016, that each left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in the dark for several hours midwinter.
No similarly destructive grid cyberattacks have been seen before or since.
But last month, Chris Inglis, former deputy director of the National Security Agency, said Russian hackers are "managing 200,000 implants in U.S. critical infrastructure" — a claim that turned heads at last week's grid reliability meeting in Orlando (Energywire, May 22).
"If this is real, why hasn't there been a directive to do something about it?" noted Bryan Owen, cybersecurity manager at technology vendor OSIsoft, who attended the Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee meeting.
Owen said that utilities' efforts to gather data on the cyberthreat "still feel modest" when compared with available metrics for safety incidents. He suggested expanding the scope of metrics to account for cyber "near misses" — not unlike the March 5 incident that didn't actually lead to a blackout.
"Ideally, we would be proactive enough that we don't have to have a lot of outages to improve," he said.
Twitter: @BlakeSobczak Email: bsobczak@eenews.net
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From Pol-Econ (virus):
DM: Yet I would think home is where you want to be in a crisis.
G M: It depends where home is. Also, things happen in the middle of crisis times, like fires or natural disasters.
-----------------------------------
That's right, part of the prepping is for home to be the safe place, but with fire or ? maybe it isn't.
-----------------------------------
First you have to realize your restrictions. Meaning you cannot pack your entire house up if you need to leave. So, keeping the list simple and executable is important.
I contacted my home owners insurance carrier and bumped up my coverage. The thought was that if I had to leave and upon my return my home was burned down what is the worth of everything I would need to replace.
A check list – I started my prep with a check list of items I have on hand, items I need to buy and where those items are located. This will help if you need to leave quickly.
Exit strategy – If I have to leave where am I going? I have a pre-determined location where I can meet up with others. Simple rule Safety in numbers…
Food and Water, non-perishable food items and plenty of water. I didn’t mess around with water bottles rather I purchased the big water cooler style bottles of water. Everyone is buying cases of water and these jugs are left unpurchased
Clothing- no need to pack all your cloths grab functional clothing, not clothing for fashion. Durable shoes, jackets socks and underwear
Personal Hygiene products – enough for a long period of time how long is up to you
Medications, pain killers, vitamins
Flashlights, with spare batteries
Pocket knives preferably utility tool such as a Leatherman
Refillable water bottles
Medical kits, gauze alcohol, bandages, tourniquets, band-aids, Neosporin
Lighters and candles. Candles should be in containers so when burned the melted wax is contained. Candles are fore light not for fragrance.
Pet food, collars, leashes if you have pets.
Trash bags, zip locks bags
Fuel Cans for vehicle gas, filled
Sleeping bags, blankets and pillows
Towels, hand and bathing
Plastic cups, bowls, plates, forks, knives, spoons
Pot, Pan and minimal cooking utensils
Paper products – Paper towels, toilet paper, wet wipes
Soap – dish soap and laundry soap
Physical Cash – minimum of $100
Charging cords for your devices
Backpacks
Spare reading glasses or prescription glasses
Personal items, laptops, paperwork, jewelry etc.
Optional items if you can, camping stove with propane, generator, ice chest
Lastly guns and ammo and personal protective kit. Some may see this as controversial however if you are put in the worst-case scenario how else to you expect to protect yourself and your family?
Once you have packed what you can, stage it for easy access. This list is by no means everything you could consider however I believe it is realistic and executable by anyone.
People are smart, mobs of people are dumb.
Yes!
Also recommended: a vehicle - if the government still lets you have one. In the gas crisis days of the 70s, my parents who liked to ski in the mountains had a second gas tank installed on their van. With today's possible fuel efficiency, you could drive a thousand miles without having to stop and fill if you did that. Our family also had a plan long before cell phones that in an emergency, when you can't communicate and have to evacuate, meet 'up at the lake'.
-----------------------------
from G M's post: "I have a pre-determined location where I can meet up with others. Simple rule Safety in numbers"
Can we all agree that in a national emergency we all meet at G M's place. Let me know if you want me to bring anything. )
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Added to my supply of gas cans yesterday.
=========================================
Quarantine and the Supply Chain
By: George Friedman
The global medical community appears to have devised a strategy for mitigating the coronavirus that depends largely on quarantine, or limiting contact among the infected and potentially infected, thereby limiting the virus’ spread. No one expects this strategy to eliminate the virus, of course. The hope is to keep it at bay long enough for it to fade away on its own or, as many experts believe, die in the more hostile conditions of warmer weather. In the meantime, it’s possible that scientists will develop more effective treatment for the disease it causes.
This is all speculative. What we know for sure is that the world’s governments are kicking the can down the road, hoping that later is better than now. It’s not an irrational plan, but it does come with economic costs, not the least of which involve supply chains. What we need to survive must travel from where it’s made to our homes, and every step along the chain is at risk of breaking down.
For our purposes, there are three indispensable supply chains: food, pharmaceuticals and energy. The need for food is obvious. The inability to obtain pharmaceuticals for pre-existing medical conditions could kill more people than the coronavirus itself. Electricity is essential to refrigerate foods and possibly pharmaceuticals, allow information to flow, and drive facilities needed for the supply chain. Gasoline must be delivered if the trucks that distribute food and pharmaceuticals are to run. There are undoubted other supply chains we have missed, but these are the essentials to get us through until the weather turns.
When my wife and I shop for groceries, we order online so that it is ready for pickup when we get to the store. Two weeks ago, we were able to place an order for same-day pickup. We ordered a two-week supply since we thought we’d be traveling a bit and wanted to make sure we had plenty of supplies when we returned home. (I saw this coming and my wife thought me mad. Please note I finally got one right.) Last week, however, we ordered online for some additional supplies, and there was a three-day wait. On Sunday, we tried again, and the earliest we could pick it up was in eight days. We checked with Amazon, the king of supply chains, and their wait on some basic food and household items was anywhere from five to 10 days. Some items were completely unavailable.
This means there are people who are just beginning to stock up who can’t because the initial surge in demand has overwhelmed supermarket stocks and has overloaded the supply. Warehouses undoubtedly have substantial resupply, and their sources – food packagers and the like – are also able to obtain food from producers. The food supply chain is robust, but we have seen a simple breakdown due to demand that may have some impact in the next few days.
But the problem is that the food supply chain and social distancing, not to mention quarantine, run against each other. No matter how automated it has become, it is staffed by people who deliver products to people. Warehouses still employ human workers. Truckers and loaders go from one node in the supply to the next. Stockers and cashiers touch food packaging. The list goes on. It is not that the quarantine is ineffective; it’s that it runs counter to the principles of its intent.
There is a social cost in all this too. Poor people cannot buy three weeks of food at a time. And the entire picture is complicated by the whims of workers, who may decide that they need their wages to survive or may determine it is safer to forego their jobs. The workforce will contract, possibly at all levels. These all involve the availability of workers who choose not to quarantine in spite of the risk to themselves and their families, a rational structure of demand from an economically variegated society, and the inevitable rage that builds under pressure.
The pharmaceutical industry has these problems too, plus the breakdown of the system would be disastrous. The maintenance of power plants involves numerous people, more when there is a problem. It requires the delivery of fuel along pipelines that must be maintained, and storage and production facilities. (This is to say nothing of the upkeep of water purification plants, pumping stations and all other essential services.)
My point is two-fold. First, a total quarantine is impossible, and second, the more aggressive the quarantine is, the more pressure it puts on vulnerable supply chains that sustain life. The systems require staff, and the staff cannot avoid contact with the public.
This is not to say that the quarantine is not a reasonable solution. Under the circumstances, it is the only reasonable solution. It may even be as effective with the number of essential workers breaking. But it is important to bear in mind that supply chains, no matter how robust, can break, and it takes armies of workers to maintain them. The cycle that is envisioned by the quarantine confronts the cycle that maintains the supply chain. The question is the math of the quarantine. To what degree does the workforce maintaining these and other supply chains – and their end-users – change the math. I assume that has been calculated and that it is understood that these supply chains cannot be allowed to break and to some extent will sustain the virus’ spread.
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https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/you-really-have-no-idea.html
TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2020
You Really Have No Idea
This isn't a ramble. I have a number of lines of thought I've been stewing over at work all weekend, and I'll be going down each one until I'm done.
Let's begin.
4000
8000
16000
32000
64000
128000
256000
512000
1000000
2000000
4000000
8000000
16000000
32000000
64000000
128000000
256000000
512000000
4000 is the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. now.
(That we know about. Reality could be 100,000 or more.)
If that original number doubles seventeen more times, the product is a number larger than the populations of the U.S. (330M), Mexico(137M), and Canada(37M), combined. IOW, it's virtually everywhere in North America at that point. (No, I'm not particularly concerned about the banana republics between Mexico and South America in this regard. They can lump it.)
What I've read is that the outbreak is doubling every 4-6 days. So somewhere between 68 and 102 days from today, the shit sandwich on this continent reaches full maturity.
If the spread of the disease is moving at that rate.
If the current voluntary measures don't halt that growth, or even slow that pace.
If it doesn't run out of people stupid enough to keep doing things to spread it.
With the above caveats:
May 22nd, to June 26th, give or take.
It crests 100M cases a week to two earlier.
Long before then, we'll have a great view of how lethal it is, and how many cases are serious. So by somewhere between mid-May and Mid-June, we'll either have metric f**ktons of people requiring hospitalization, and dead, or not. How much better or worse it is then will be a foolproof look at whether this is a nothingburger, or Spanish Flu. Oh, and if there are really 100,000 cases now, we get there a full month earlier.
Now maybe you can figure out why POTUS said this will last through July or August, at minimum.
And remember, the 85% (or more, or less) of all infected people who have symptoms ranging from none, to moderate flu, aren't the problem. They never were. They'll be just fine.
It's the hordes dying in droves, and crashing the entire U.S. medical system that could put a kink in this country that'll last for decades. And crashing the stock market. And everyone going broke. And crashing the economy even after this passes. And so on. And so on. And so on.
That's 5 1/2 months from now.
How much food do you have?
How much cash on hand do you have?
How much of each of those does Gilligan's family have, and how far are they from you?
So, how much ammo do you have??
That little thought exercise should concentrate your minds wonderfully.
----------
Now, a reminder about some other numbers.
900,000 staffed hospital beds.
93,000 staffed ICU beds.
60,000 ventilators.
1,000,000 medical doctors.
2,800,000 registered nurses.
106,000 respiratory therapists.
That is the army you're gong to war with, in this pandemic.
And when I say staffed beds, I don't just mean doctors, nurses, and RTs. I also mean D.Os, PAs, EMTs, CNAs, pharmacists, radiology techs, facilities engineers, clean-up crew, supply workers, registration clerks, administration people, IT geeks, and hundreds of other clerks and jerks, without whose constant efforts and hard work, plus medical supplies in small mountains every single day, Dr. Hero and Nurse Awesome are just a couple of people in funny pajamas, and with about as much lifesaving ability on their own as there is actual magical ability in Rupert Grint and Matthew Lewis.
If it was just beds we needed, we could take all the surplus army cots from the 2M guys RIFFed from Uncle Sam in the 1990s, unfold them, and Presto!, have another 2M spots to dump patients. It doesn't work like that.
I bring this up because if "only" 10% of Kung Flu victims require a hospital bed, because they're really that sick, then long about the time we hit 16,000,000 victims, in (44 to 66 days, so let's average it to) 55 days, we have more patients than we have beds for them. At that point, we're Italy. Say about May the 12th or so. (We may also have up to 480,000 dead, which if it happens would have crushed every ICU in the country 5 times over long before that point.)
We've covered this before, but it bears keeping in mind. Keep your thumb in this spot, as we move along.
----------
This weekend, all considered, from purely a Kung Flu cases standpoint, was just ducky.
We had maybe half a dozen to ten "rule-outs" (meaning "maybe it is, maybe it isn't; look for other things that rule out Kung Flu. Like actual influenza flu.) Given the abysmally slow return time, I believe at least one was positive for Kung Flu.
"Ten patients? Is that all?!? Aesop is fulla sh*t! This is a big conjob nothingburger!" - every two-digit IQ soopergenius who ever read a word I wrote on this topic.
And herewith, we digress for a bit.
Scenario One: You're in the military. In a combat zone. The enemy is known to have chemical weapons. One day, a shell whistles over from the enemy side of things, and goes off with a less than enthusiastic bang. Then another, and another. You see a hazy white cloud forming at each impact site, coalescing into a large white cloud, now drifting lazily towards your position.
Do you
a) send the company dumbass Gilligan over there to have a sniff for you, and report back
b) send the whole company of men over, and see what happens
c) put Gilligan in temporary command, and have him lead the whole company over there
d) Yell "GAS! GAS! GAS!", while clanging metal-on-metal, and then rapidly don your MOPP gear and gas mask, before the cloud blows into your position, and prepare to treat anyone nearby who was slower on the uptake.
Scenario Two: You're working in a hospital. An ambulance arrives, and unloads a patient spurting blood everywhere, who tells you he just arrived from the Congo, where he runs an HIV and Ebola Survivors Clinic, and tripped on the jetway and cut his leg open.
Do you
a) run over and apply direct pressure with your bare hands, while fountaining blood cascades into your eyes, nose, and mouth, and lick yourself clean afterwards
b) yell at all your other co-workers to join you in performing "a"
c) Both "a" and "b"
d) put on appropriate gown, gloves, and mask with splatter shield, and apply an emergency tourniquet
In case you were wondering, the correct answer to both scenarios is "d".
You always assume the worst, from common sense, and institutional policy, and over-prepare, so you can deal with it easily if it turns out to be less-than.
You don't grab your .22 to go take on that African Cape Buffalo, and then find out you needed a bit more to get it done. Unless you're a farking moron.
I told you that story so I could tell you this one:
----------
Some days back, I stated that I didn't think we'd bring Kung Flu patients into the hospital, but instead, triage them in tents outside, then send the ones meeting criteria to some FEMA-set-up Kung Flu Treatment Center, staffed as possible, and serviced by dedicated Hazmat 9-1-1 ambulances, whisking members of the community there as appropriate, in full protective gear, 24/7/365.
Because, as I argued with flawless logic, to do otherwise would be to
a) risk our entire healthcare system being overwhelmed and destroyed, a la Italy, and
b) make every other medical emergency impossible to deal with, thus doubling casualties from every other treatable and preventable cause of death, from heart attacks and strokes to appendicitis, because the entirety of any and every hospital would be filled with Kung Flu-infected plague petri dishes, in every nook and cranny.
Turns out, TPTB, top to bottom, make the Italians look like Leonardo da Vinci.
1) We're not putting tents up everywhere.
2) We're not segregating people out of the hospital.
3) We'll do a half-assed triage assessment outside the building somewhere (fill in the blank where___________)
4) Using screening criteria overtaken by reality a month ago, because the CDC, no matter how asinine, is always the CDC
4a) to wit, asking about foreign travel, even though homegrown community-acquired cases outstrip foreign travel candidates, and have for two weeks
4b) ask about exposure to known Kung Flu patients, even though the CDC and local public health departments refused to test for Kung Flu until four days ago, in most cases, (due to jackassery, fuckwittery, and a dearth of functional kits for two months) thus insuring via Catch-22, that if you never test for King Flu, nobody anyone was in contact with ever officially has Kung Flu
5) then bring the infected into an appropriate sealed negative airflow room
5a) which cleverly has no patient monitoring equipment
5b) will not allow you to get portable chest x-ray equipment into the room with the patient with respiratory problems (which, cleverly, no one thought about prior to then)
5c) which would contaminate said portable x-ray equipment every time you got it into the quarantine room
5d) which would require an extensive, nigh impossible decontamination of said X-ray equipment for each and every subsequent patient
5e) thus leading to shooting x-rays outside the building, or in other places that probably violate 27 hospital safety policies, local health and safety codes, and probably eleventy Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations regarding radiological safety of patients, staff, and bystanders, in a slow-rolling Chernobyl sort of way
5f) and taking them to CT scanners which are then contaminated, and failing to do a full terminal clean of said rooms and equipment each and every time, which would take them offline for hours each shift, and necessitate closing the hospital to ambulance traffic, so why bother cleaning?
6)unless you're fresh out of negative airflow rooms, in which case you
7) put them into open rooms with no protection or containment
8) thus insuring that all staff members and other patients are exposed over and over again
9) to cases which will not be tested for Kung Flu unless they're first proven negative for the flu
10) Or not
11) All such "policies" being rather more like the Pirates Code ("just guidelines, really"), purely at the whimsy and caprice of whatever doctor(s), charge nurses, or cranky old bat nurse has phone duty that day at the Public Health office, and their personal and capricious interpretation of the current (of four or five or six, so far) CDC guidelines
12) which apparently are changed every hour, if not more frequently
13) while the managers, and senior management, who should be living in the same shoes and underpants 24/7/365 until they sort this shit out, weekend or no, but whom are instead nowhere to be seen, heard from, or in any wise directly involved, until the total colossal clusterfuck falls over from its own weight seven or eight times over, between Friday afternoon and the middle of the following week.
14) while staff and patients having to deal with the results of people with Acute-on-Chronic Head-Up-The-Ass-Syndrome are repeatedly subjected to potential pandemic exposure, leading to sickness, preventative quarantine, lawsuits, and death
15) as the Low IQ staff members, who still think this is no big deal, continue to half-ass every bit of their response, 24/7/365, because half of them were below the upper/lower cut in their graduating classes as well.
THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE GETTING.
The CDC (as per usual, going back years decades) has no f**king idea that it doesn't even know what it doesn't even know, including how to find its own ass with both hands, a map, a compass, and a rearview mirror.
ManageManglement has no idea the CDC can't find its own ass either, and is looking for their own as well.
Supervisory staff puts on its Lemming Suicide Squad Crash Helmet and blinders, and announces that the Light Brigade will smartly charge right over the cliff.
Grunt-level staff, doctors, nurses, ancillary members, etc. will continue to work until
a) they can't take the bullshit
b) they get sick
c) they realize their own family's safety trumps a paycheck.
Instead of learning from Italy's mistakes, and trying to save people and the overall healthcare system, we're going to keep on half-assing this until we're in it over our heads, and then drown. Instead of making the hard call early, and working the kinks out now, when it would have been easy, when it's five patients a week, we'll wait until it's 500 patients an hour, and then crash and burn in a glorious orgy of stupidity.
I expect people to hit the wall.
This is all new to everyone.
There hasn't been a pandemic like this in 100 years.
BUT I ALSO EXPECTED THEM NOT TO BE SO GODDAMN STUPID AFTER THEY HIT THE WALL AS TO NOT RUN HEADFIRST INTO IT TEN OR TWENTY MORE TIMES, IN RAPID SUCCESSION, SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CAN.
That last expectation was misguided, being most clearly irrational hubris overcoming a solid and well-founded pessimism about people in general, the universality of the Peter Principle, and the inevitability of people, left to their own devices, shooting themselves in the feet until they run out of feet, or ammunition. And then, reloading.
Having said (and witnessed, firsthand) all of the above, and after understating it by at least half (you really have NO idea) there's only one way to deal with this, for me:
I mean that last, most sincerely. We're all going to go through this. Harden the fuck up.
Take care of yourselves.
Take care of your families.
Take care of your friends.
Take care of Your People.
No one is coming to save you.
Not me.
Not the government.
Not. Any. One.
Everything is Your Responsibility.
Deal With your Shit.
Get It Done.
YOYO = You're On Your Own
Best Wishes. Really.
And if, watching the economy do a SMOD impact into your life, and the entire nation go onto a (mostly voluntary) full lockdown quarantine, you still think this is just a hype and a nothing burger, I can't help you. If you're right, I don't need to; and if I'm right, no one will miss you.
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I was calculating a doubling every 6 d and got about 2.5 to 3.5 months
hoping we can contain the spread to some degree
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That grim assessment article is seriously scary GM. You have me looking like a Jewish Don King :-o :-o :-o
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That grim assessment article is seriously scary GM. You have me looking like a Jewish Don King :-o :-o :-o
In my area, reports of people physically fighting over the last loaf of bread in a grocery store today. Things haven't even gotten bad yet.
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https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/live/coronavirus-covid19-philadelphia-pennsylvania-new-jersey-confirmed-case-updates-news-20200317.html
Lawless.
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https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031120v3
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/don-king-waves-israeli-flag-at-trump-event/
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I met him the night before the Douglas-Holyfield heavyweight title fight (year?) and actually got to read his hand. Remarkably short headline, all three of the major lines of his hand were clear and deep IIRC.
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Regarding prepping right now, I was asked today about cash.
What say G M, others?
I don't see any reason in this crisis to go crazy on cash. Bank lobbies will close. Retailers are putting a squeeze on cash back transactions. But I don't see why drive through tellers will close or ATMs and they already have limits on how much paper money you can take at a time or in a day, as do banks with a higher limit at the teller window,
So little of what we do today requires cash. I buy a lot of used appliances and building materials and sometimes labor with cash. Young people barely know what cash is. They know miles or credit card rewards. Yes, data lines and computers could go down, but why? I'm more worried about cash being banned, not accepted for the germs. Do you really want change from your drive through fast food server?
If cash, then small bills or a variety of bills. $100s are hard to get broken and large amounts are hard to count if smaller than $100. Large amounts create a security problem. Amounts over $10,000 get tracked by the IRS.
That said, why not take your daily cash limit from the ATM ($300?) for a while up to your comfort level limit.
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I recommend keeping the minimum of several hundred dollars at the minimum on your person (Not all together) and at least a month's worth of cash at home.
Regarding prepping right now, I was asked today about cash.
What say G M, others?
I don't see any reason in this crisis to go crazy on cash. Bank lobbies will close. Retailers are putting a squeeze on cash back transactions. But I don't see why drive through tellers will close or ATMs and they already have limits on how much paper money you can take at a time or in a day, as do banks with a higher limit at the teller window,
So little of what we do today requires cash. I buy a lot of used appliances and building materials and sometimes labor with cash. Young people barely know what cash is. They know miles or credit card rewards. Yes, data lines and computers could go down, but why? I'm more worried about cash being banned, not accepted for the germs. Do you really want change from your drive through fast food server?
If cash, then small bills or a variety of bills. $100s are hard to get broken and large amounts are hard to count if smaller than $100. Large amounts create a security problem. Amounts over $10,000 get tracked by the IRS.
That said, why not take your daily cash limit from the ATM ($300?) for a while up to your comfort level limit.
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kind of surprised gold and silver are down
a buy?
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kind of surprised gold and silver are down
a buy?
I would buy junk silver and very small gold and silver coins with cash from a small local business that verifies the coins are real.
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Ammo is a better currency for serious times , , ,
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Ammo is a better currency for serious times , , ,
Yes.
Guns, ammo and the training to use them. Otherwise you are just buying things for the guys with prison tats and machetes that will be kicking in your doors.
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I'm not on the doom side of this, but still smart to prepare for the worst.
Virus is the first kick in the gut and second and third waves etc are a part of it. The deeper trouble starts with the second kick. I think it was Peggy Noonan who wrote, think grid, grid, grid.
My experience with a gas (from the gas station) generator is that I could run a pump or a circular saw for about an hour and need to refill it. Then if the grid is down, the stations stop selling gas. Worthless for long term needs planning.
Where I live, I believe a natural gas generator would be the key. Like everything else, you need to buy and install before you need it, like in summer before you need it in winter.
If you don't have NG piped to you, then a giant propane tank might help, if it's full.
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Yes.
These thoughts are very much in mind with the probability of moving out of CA to NC this year on the radar screen.
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https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/we-didnt-have-to-have-ventilator-shortage-leaders-chose-not-to-prep-for-pandemic/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site+buttons&utm_campaign=site+buttons
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Yes.
These thoughts are very much in mind with the probability of moving out of CA to NC this year on the radar screen.
Wow. Almost breaking news here...
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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2020-03-30/hedgelesshorsemans-day-late-and-dollar-short-fun-filled-survival-activities-passing
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Long term food. Buy a lot!
Don't say you weren't warned.
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We have had ours for about a year now.
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https://jennifermargulis.net/glyphosate-and-covid-19-connection/
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https://jennifermargulis.net/glyphosate-and-covid-19-connection/
The link appears deader than a Chinese whistleblower.
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That is very witty, but
1) it is working for me; and
2) my error putting it in this thread-- I just posted it in the Epidemic thread.
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That is very witty, but
1) it is working for me; and
2) my error putting it in this thread-- I just posted it in the Epidemic thread.
Ok, now it's working.
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Long term food. Buy a lot!
Don't say you weren't warned.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8212777/Farmers-dump-5-milk-plow-fresh-vegetables-soil-coronavirus.html
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Long term food. Buy a lot!
Don't say you weren't warned.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8212777/Farmers-dump-5-milk-plow-fresh-vegetables-soil-coronavirus.html
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/perilously-close-meat-shortfalls-worlds-largest-pork-producer-shutters-key-factory-after
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Bought more meat today-- buffalo and lamb!
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Surprised to Peggy Noonan and our G M making the same point:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-is-the-epicenter-of-the-world-11585869852
The hidden gift in this pandemic is that this isn’t the most terrible one, the next one or some other one down the road is. This is the one where we learn how to handle that coming pandemic. We are well into the age of global contagions but this is the first time we fully noticed, stopped short, actually reordered our country to fight it.
This is when we learn what worked, what decision made it better or worse, what stockpiles are needed, what can be warehoused, where research dollars must be targeted.
We’re on a shakedown cruise. Knowledge of how to handle a coming, more difficult pandemic is being gained now, by all of us.
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A $1200 check in 2020 doesn't begin to buy what $11 could buy in 2019, a $10 N95 mask and a $1 bottle of hand sanitizer.
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Safety-Equipment-Respirator-Masks/N95/N-5yc1vZc25kZ1z195hh
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https://www.offgridweb.com/survival/your-moneys-no-good-here-surviving-an-economic-collapse/
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/health/cracking-americas-food-supply-chain-serious-problem
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https://www.kadn.com/content/news/New-Law-Requires-Portable-Gas-Containers-to-Add-Devices-to-Protect-Against-Explosions-573513261.html
and for those who find the new nozzles irritating, here are some possible solutions:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gas+can+nozzles&ref=nb_sb_noss
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyLMwzDR4qY&feature=emb_logo
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sounds like environmental terrorism to me
maybe not Russian
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/06/01/cyberattack-on-jbs-n2590301
if MSM says Russian it likely is not
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https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-kit/winter-preps-to-keep-in-your-car/
I give the credited for noticing that your emergency water supply freezes; must bring fresh every day, which I do.
Add to their point on carbon monoxide danger, PUT A CO DETECTOR IN YOUR CAR for that time you will leave your car running in winter. What do they cost, $20-30 and save your life in an emergency situation.
I would add that the hybrid vehicles don't have to run constantly to maintain the inside the car temp; most will turn the car off and on as needed.
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https://traveljohn.com/
I can strongly recommend the above product.
https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-kit/winter-preps-to-keep-in-your-car/
I give the credited for noticing that your emergency water supply freezes; must bring fresh every day, which I do.
Add to their point on carbon monoxide danger, PUT A CO DETECTOR IN YOUR CAR for that time you will leave your car running in winter. What do they cost, $20-30 and save your life in an emergency situation.
I would add that the hybrid vehicles don't have to run constantly to maintain the inside the car temp; most will turn the car off and on as needed.
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Drove 14 hours yesterday getting back from visiting my mom in upstate NY so I am not particularly crisp today , , ,
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Working from memory, the blackout hit around 2100.
All traffic lights, all stores, supermarkets, gas stations etc were 100% out.
Our first concern was not losing all the food in our two large refrigerators/freezers-- both of which are packed to the brim. We did not open either one at all so as to maintain temp! In the morning I ventured out and was blessed to discover that Harris Teeter had a generator and was up and running at near full capacity. Huge line at its Starbucks haha. Plan was to buy ice but good news! They had dry ice so I bought several bags. With this our immediate concern for the refrigerated food was solved.
Second step was to get our generator up and running.
We had bought a tri-fuel Firman Power T07573 at Costco many months ago ($850, Cindy says now selling for $1400?)
7500 Running Watts
We had been trying for a few weeks to get someone to hook it up to propane (we have several spare tanks) but in the absence thereof got in running on gasoline. Started very easily.
Had 22.5 gallons of gasoline on hand, but being unsure of our ability to refill (nearest functioning gas station was in the next county and there were many others from Moore County so sustained availability of gasoline was unclear) so for the first two days we just ran it during the day. At that point a gas station in the neighborhood became available so we ran 24/7.
At first our extension cords were 16 gage but an electrical contractor friend through the 37PSR Gun Range told us we would be better with 12 gage so we bought that and with it we were able to hook up our hydroponic indoor garden and save the greens therein as well as use the light from it.
First night was very cold (28?) and the first electric heater we plugged in created a problem so lots of clothing and blankets at night. Subsequent days and nights were much warmer. Gas fireplace in the living room made that the place to be. If necessary, we could have run the burners on the gas stove as well-- which is where we did our cooking.
Our electric contractor friend tells us for about $1500 we can get a permanent throw a switch type hook up to the house which will obviate the need for extension cords and given the capability of our generator we should be able to run the heat for the ground level of the house as well as the refrigerators.
A good practice run for us.
We will be getting insistent on getting a propane hook up for the generator-- if gasoline supplies had been shut down we would have been fuct into losing serious amount of food after our 22 gallons had run out. Our understanding is that we can have a much longer running capacity with propane. We have dry food supplies for several months too but the $$$ loss of refrigeration would have been substantial. Also, we will be having that connection with a proper electrician installed panel made.
Also, we became aware that we did not really understand how to use our walkie talkies. Phone system did stay up and running but a phone cell tower was part of the sabotage, so this is something that needs to be thought about.
We were very pleased with the generator. Easy to start, the flexibility of different fuel sources is a big plus, and our contractor friend tells us it can run a very practical % of our house once a proper panel connection is set up. Small enough that two men could put it in the back of a pick up truck and take it elsewhere should that be necessary. The two wheels mean we were able to roll it into the garage at night as an anti-theft measure.
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second
Michael Yon
Hi @Username321,
Michael Yon just posted something!
Michael Yon @MichaelYon
Dec 14, 2022 at 8:21am
Survival and Comfort Tip: INVEST IN WOOL
14 December 2022
Texas
Wool mind-dump, sans edit
Folks often asking for survival advice. Invest in wool. Top to bottom. Not cotton. Wool. Wool is undisputed King for most things that matter.
Downside of wool is more money up front. But materials like cotton synthetics are expenses. Wool more edges toward investment.
Guaranteed some folks reading this are wearing wool from their parents or grandparents and it’s as good now as it was fifty years ago. I guarantee someone reading this has an old wool blanket over a century old that is good as new. Cotton…no chance.
I wear a pair of smart wool socks now to the point that I wonder if they ever will wear out. Quality wool socks are FAR more comfortable than cotton. Not even in same class. After you wear truly nice wool socks you look at cotton socks as if wrapping your feet in newspapers.
I sleep in a thin wool shirt and wear wool almost daily in summer and winter.
Army saying: COTTON KILLS. I was in 10th Special Forces Group. Huge amounts of cold weather training. We never took cotton to the field other than bandages. We were issued mostly synthetics, though, like Polypropylene. I’ve worn all that stuff a lot, and wool…am sticking with wool.
I’ve been to a lot of cold weather places such as walked to Mt. Everest twice, lived in Poland, and other cold places for years, and I also spend much time in jungles and deserts. GO WOOL.
100% wool. Not X% this and x% that. 100% wool. You will thank me five years from now. But you must study a bit on how to use and care for your wool. Treat your wool with respect like it’s a little sheep with you. Know how to use it…you gonna be happy. Wool blankets, socks, underwear. Get it.
We soon will begin some rough times and so if you have the right clothing you can check that off. Your quality wool is not going to fall apart like cotton. Also is flame retardant.
I called my friend Matt in Panama this morning and we were talking about wool for next Darien Gap recon. Matt said it’s raining more, and cooler now than usual. Might be due to Tonga eruption. Don’t know.
Matt mentioned an old-timer he used to spearfish with. Said the old-timer — before wetsuits — said they would use wool as their wetsuits and they stayed warm.
Interesting that pharma-scientists pretend they are masters of the universe with vaccines. They are lying or naive. So they say they can snap their fingers and make sophisticated ‘vaccines,’ but after centuries nobody can be wool. You could become fantastically rich if you could beat wool
Anyone who could make a material as cheap as cotton but with the qualities of wool could become a billionaire very quickly. They cannot even beat the simple wool made by sheep and ox but pretend they can print human organs. It’s a scam.
Beat wool and I will be impressed.
Many people think about wool as for cold only. Untrue. Wool can be very good in warm weather. Wool can be superior to cotton even in hot weather. Wool is King. Invest it in now. You will be happy. Cotton is an expense. Quality wool becomes part of the family property.
I found this random video for some comparisons. Wool has other very good qualities not mentioned here. Again, biggest downside to wool is upfront investment. Cotton and the synthetics are expenses. (Down is great, too, but that is another story).
Get wool.
https://youtu.be/RIZ_Ton-X7c
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https://www.amazon.com/Preppers-Long-Term-Survival-Guide-Grid/dp/1612432735?pd_rd_w=0TLyp&content-id=amzn1.sym.bdcf3697-5086-45e8-ae4c-7b611e0ab43a&pf_rd_p=bdcf3697-5086-45e8-ae4c-7b611e0ab43a&pf_rd_r=RPEA75F6QRMXDGYZPXWH&pd_rd_wg=3jkIA&pd_rd_r=522b09bc-7838-4103-95ab-381f0e22d723&pd_rd_i=1612432735&psc=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=drhelenblog-20&linkId=0f345e8049d133660add5d9ed6e6cadb&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl
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Chiefio is again spot on:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2024/01/18/prepare-for-grid-down-disruption-events/
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We have a generator that runs on gas, propane, and , , , I forget the third one haha. We have gasoline and propane in the shed. We had an electrician set up a special line that allows us to go directly into the panel so we would not be limited to extension cords. Our generator is strong and can pretty much run the whole house if we turn off what we are not using.
We have a freezer and a back up refrigerator in the garage, all packed to the gills with back up food so the generator is super important to protect against the food going bad. We also have dried and canned food too.
And the means to protect it all!
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We have a generator that runs on gas, propane, and , , , I forget the third one haha. We have gasoline and propane in the shed. We had an electrician set up a special line that allows us to go directly into the panel so we would not be limited to extension cords. Our generator is strong and can pretty much run the whole house if we turn off what we are not using.
We have a freezer and a back up refrigerator in the garage, all packed to the gills with back up food so the generator is super important to protect against the food going bad. We also have dried and canned food too.
And the means to protect it all!
I'll note that one of the smartest things I ever did was keep an eye on Craigslist for a fireplace insert. Living in the mountains west of DC, and working in one of the largest suburbs near it, there is always some gov factotum or beltway bandit looking to rid himself of something in the way of his remodel or whatever, cheap. The insert can heat the whole house, I can cook on top of it, make coffee for my adicted wife, while it feed it deadfall from the surrounding woods. If one has a fireplace I highly recommend an insert as a means of addressing cold weather needs. Combine that with three gennies and various other preps like chains x 4 for all vehicles, a plow, and so on and it's easy to tell the difference between my home and those of less prepared neighbors.
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Pleased to say the only thing listed here that isn't in my GHBs is sea dye.
And I do a mix of "the scatter method & the one bag method" since I have to deal with non-permissive environments. Basically I add critical items to my various bags set up for various situations and environments, with the major downside being the cost of duplicating materials across the various tool/resource collections.
https://www.backpacker.com/survival/whats-in-military-sere-instructors-survival-kit/