The term "preps" can be defined as tangible items or systems that you acquire or build and use in your personal or family emergency and disaster preparedness efforts. The term "prepping" refers to the process by which you incrementally increase your level of preparedness on a continuum from short-term self-reliance to long-term self-sufficiency. A preparedness lifestyle combines physical preps with tactical and strategic planning, training, drills, etc. In most scenarios, you'll be urgently forced to decide whether to evacuate an affected area or shelter-in-place. This decision may change as the situation progresses. In all circumstances, being well equipped and supplied at all times and at all points along the path to safety requires maintaining inventories of your preps and understanding how each nested level of preps supports, enhances, and backs up the others.
A useful concept for organizing preps across locations and contexts, is that of a pyramid in which a scale from the smallest to the largest stores of preps are distributed. From the top of the pyramid representing the smallest units of preps, to the bottom of the pyramid representing the largest units, the following "preparedness zones" are listed:
Items often carried on the body include:
cutting tools, fire making tools, multi-tool, parachute cord, led light, compass, first-aid items (band-aids, alcohol pads, tourniquette), whistle, water purification tablets, emergency medical info card, list of emergency contacts, bandana, cell phone with additional an battery backup, encrypted flash drive with important files, notepad, writing utensils, “forever” postage stamps, cash, checks, herbal energy pills, p38 can opener, stainless steel water bottle, pepper spray, other legal self-defense implements
Using a camping, hiking, or military style back pack as a 72-hour emergency evacuation kit allows you to move on foot, hands-free. On this scale of preps, you may have some of the same items that you’d have on your body, however in greater lengths, quantities, container sizes, etc. as you’ll have the main column of the bag, plus many extra pockets, compartments, straps, clips, etc.
Here’s a list of some of the items often found in or attached to evacuation back packs:
More fire making tools, more parachute cord, flashlight, batteries, candles, first aid kit, extra medications, hand crank/solar emergency weather radio, signal mirror, toilet paper, tweezers, toothbrush, misc. toiletries, sun block, bug spray, warm clothes (kept dry in a large zip lock bag), rain gear, gloves, hat, sun glasses, eating dish/utensils, lightweight pot for cooking/boiling water, salt/spices, three days worth of dry food, hunting/fishing gear, wild edible plant identification books, bigger water bottle, additional water filtration and purification devices and substances, folding shovel, wire saw, sewing needles and dental floss, pen or pencil wrapped with duct tape, full size notebook, envelopes, plastic bags, garbage bags, survival manuals, entertainment devices such as books or games, documentation package (including emergency contacts, local emergency service provider phone numbers, evacuation procedures/plans/packing checklists, multiple evacuation routes, list of family medications/medical conditions, etc.), maps, sleeping bag, mylar blanket, tube tent, sleeping pad, tarp, poly sheeting, legal self-defense tools carried in accordance with local law.
It helps to separate and categorize your items into clear water-resistant bags and distribute the bags to different pockets and compartments for easy access. It's best to leave a reasonable amount of empty space per pocket so that repacking isn't difficult under stress, in a rush, or in harsh weather.
Your normal commuting vehicle (which may or not be your main evacuation vehicle) should always contain your back pack so that it will be accessible wherever you drive. Storing it in the car trunk or discretely in the truck cab also ensures you’ll never forget it at home. Another benefit of it being stored in your vehicle is that if an emergency situation calls for a long walk, you can remove non-essential items and lock them in your trunk or truck bed lock box.
If don't own a vehicle, are on public transportation, in someone else’s vehicle, riding a bike, or for any other reason separated from direct access to your vehicle it won’t always be feasible to bring your your full-size back pack with you. In these situations it's best to have a miniturized "book bag" style back pack with a selection of items.
Every member of your family should have at least one evacuation back pack that contains items appropriate to them, along with the most current versions of printed important family documents as they evolve over time.
Besides simply scaling up your preps (such as 5 gallon buckets of dry food that preferably doesn’t require cooking, multiple gallons of water, larger first aid kits, etc. the following are some preps specific to vehicles:
Flares and other emergency signaling devices, personal protective equipment (such as goggles, helments, heavier gloves), basic mechanic tools, spare parts (headlights, belts, bulbs, etc.), quarts of oil, extra fluids, deep cycle batteries, gas can (kept empty unless it can be stored safely and securely), map books, solar power system, power inverter, routinely inspected spare tire, snow chains, jack, blankets, tent, boots, shovel, books, more legal self-defense tools transported in accordance with local law, human waste and garbage containers, sanitary disposal equipment/systems, any other large utility/emergency items that don’t fit in or are not appropriate for your back pack.
All family vehicles should be at least minimally prepped for evacuation, even if there’s one larger vehicle that’s designated as the main evacuation vehicle. Ideally, such a main evacuation vehicle would have a powerful tow capacity so that a fully stocked and always ready to hitch trailer can be attached. There are many trailer options each with unique advantages and disadvantages. However, they all provide increased storage space to scale up preps and free up space in the vehicle and may also serve as optimal lodging alternatives that will save money and denecessitate exposure to the risks and potential scarcity of available room at public shelters and hotels. Given the foreseeable and unforessable range of social, chemical, and biological threats (from social unrest to infectious disease to toxic fires, spills, etc) the best vehicle/trailer or RV configuration would be the one that allows you to comfortably avoid human contact and populated areas for extended periods of time and over extended mileage.
This refers to the place where most of your time is spent outside of the home, wherever that may be. The goal would be to get your colleagues or co-workers on-board with prepping so that they collaborate and pool resources to ensure that there are adequate preps on-site. Whether in a basement, storage closet, or under your desk you should try to get some amount of food/water/medical supply storage set up. Facility managers may already store emergency kits on-site that are sized appropriately for the number of people in your office building, dorm, etc. so it's advisable to confer with such staff and request the implemenation of an emergency kit policy/program if one is not currently in place.
Storage units, relatives' garages, friends' attics/basements, and even well hidden or buried stock-piles of preps along routes of evacuation are all important considerations. These auxiliary sites have security and reliability trade-offs and therefore may not be ideal for un-replaceable items, however they may be key factors in situations where you lose access to one or more of your other personally controlled preparedness zones. For non-commercial storage sites that involve your personal relationships, clear and well-in-advance communication about the terms and conditions of access is essential to avoid misunderstanding, emotional strain, and surprise.
While rest areas, camp sites, hotels, emergency public shelters, and other temporary shelters don't give you the option to readily store preps in advance, you may prearrange with relatives or friends to stay in guest rooms or guest houses, to park an RV in a driveway etc. for a temporary duration. In such arrangements, it may be appropriate to negotiate a reasonable amount of space to pre-stock additional preps as described above. It's worth exploring whether some form of barter or storage/use fee would be appreciated in order to make such an arrangement less of a favor and more of value trade.
Your home is where you can and should feel the most safe and secure. It's likely where you spend most of your time and have the most control over the tools, equipment, supplies, operating proceedures, security policies, and other administrative functions. Prep items to consider include:
large water tanks, rain water catchment systems, months to years worth of long term food storage in the form of canned foods and dry foods including your favorite seeds (for eating, sprouting, and planting), nuts, spices, ried herbs, dried fruits, etc. in 5 gallon bucket/mylar bag/oxygen absorber kits on a rotation system so you “eat what you store and store what you eat”, sprout jars, green house, permaculture garden (food forest if possible), irrigation systems, herbal medicine cabinet, organic recycling center (i.e. compost, vermiculture, humanure, etc), guard dog(s), livestock, food dehydrator, canning equipment, solar power system with battery bank, more legal weapons, low and high tech security systems, toiletry reserves, fuel reserves (gas, firewood, etc.), generator, full camping gear for the whole family, bigger/more specialized hand/power tools, fire-proof lock box for important documents, back up computers, back up external hard drives, useful practical/instructional books and videos, cash, precious metal reserves, large self-assembled or store bought emergency kits, tool shed, etc.
Depending on the context of your residence be it owned or rented, urban, suburban, or rural, small or large, yard or no yard, it may not be where you apply your best efforts and spend the most money on long term homesteading systems. If your current residence is not well suited to be a permanent life-long and ideally intergenerational homestead project, it's best to aquire some amount of rural land on which to establish a remote regenerative retreat that you enjoy as a recreation and vacation site, an emergency short, medium or long-term shelter, and ecologically rich and food productive retirement home.
This is your ultimate destination in a forced or voluntary evacuation from your normal place of residence. Ideally it would be far out of urban and suburban zones though not necessarily totally isolated. For those who can afford the luxury, this is a piece of rural land that you own and have put some kind of legal temporary or permanent inhabitable structure on (trailer, teepee, yurt, cabin, house, natural building, etc.)
In terms of the scales of preps, the remote regenerative retreat will often have the largest stock-pile of preps when you factor in the ability to hide or bury large caches and the ability to establish permaculture edible forest gardens, ponds, springs, streams, swales, wood lots, wind power, solar power, micro-hydro systems, etc. The extent to which it’s developed by the time you need it will be determined by how much time, energy, and money you can afford to put into it while you’re not actually living on it.In rural zones, the land itself is a prep. The more you do to prep the landscape, the more yields you’ll produce that are regenerative. In an apartment or small urban lot, you’re usually not able to access and produce renewable resources on the scale needed to be self-sufficient. Urban preps are generally only going to serve for a finite period of self-reliance until your supplies run out and commercial supply chains can't refill them. It’s worth noting that in both urban and rural contexts, self-sufficiency is rarely achieved on a household level, rather it requires the functional interdependence of a small community.
Ideally if you’re evacuating from your residential area to your remote regenerative retreat, you’ll have taken as many of the preps from the smaller levels of the pyramid with you so you can combine them in a well thoughtout manner that maximizes compatibility.
Unless an evacuation from your normal residence is only temporary and you plan to go back home after danger subsides, this location is may become your permanent residence. It's important to realize that if you do permenantly relocate to your retreat and concentrate your efforts to build it out as your final homestead, you must then restart the process of planning and development for an additional retreat location. You'll always want to have a fall back that's out of the region and has a different natural/social risk profile to the one you're currently in. While it's not feasible for most individuals or small families to own and operate multiple mature remote homesteads, having as many works-in-progress spread across networks of affiliation (such as extended family, ethnicity, spirituality, ideology, lifestyle, profession, etc.) will ensure you have mutual aid and support beyond your limited personal means. Ideally the largest step of the prepping pyramid would be a culture of preparedness wherein redundancy is built into every system that a population relies on to thrive.