Semper Paratus

Dating in the Pre-Apocalyptic Era.

2006-05-13T15:34:59Z

I saw a post on survivalblog today where someone was asking about whether there were any 'survivalist matchmaking' sites out there. I don't know of any such site either (I tried match.com and eharmony before I met commander_zero, and neither was helpful) but it seems to me that the fastest way to meet people with at least some interest in preparedness ideals is to go where they are. See if anyone catches your eye in preparedness or firearms forums. Join your local libertarian party (not to say there's not non-libertarian preparedness folks, but there seem to be more there than most). Join your local ham radio club, shooting sports club, and so on. Admittedly it's going to be a lot harder to find women in this arena than men, but you're probably not going to meet the Sarah Connor of your dreams at your local sports bar, either. Depending on your religious views, people in the Mormon faith are probably more open to preparedness ideals, also.

But mainly - you catch a lot of fish when you go where the fish are. You'll catch a Heinlenesque partner by doing the same thing.

And if you're not in the market but you have an anti-preparedness spouse already - say you're already in a relationship with someone who can't understand why you need yet another #10 can of Mountain House freeze drieds in the basement - try a slow, steady educational effort. I never cared one way or the other about preparedness (aside from the standard three days of supplies everyone had growing up in NC during hurricane season) until I started paying attention to what happened to people who *weren't* prepared during disasters. I slowly came around, and one thing that helped was the lack of the word "survival." To me, "survivalism" was weird Rambo nutcase Unabomber stuff. (Reading Jerry Ahern books only made that impression worse!)

But preparedness - well that's just plain old-fashioned common sense! I don't know any woman who doesn't like having a well-stocked larder. A little "PR" work can probably bring anyone around.

Poultry for Long-Term.

2006-03-15T21:03:54Z

paratusblog has a fantastic post up about storing poultry products long-term. I think he has a terrific point here, which is that even if H5N1 doesn't mutate and become problematic for us from a human disease standpoint, it's pretty certain that it will impact our domestic poultry production. While that may not mean we have no access to poultry products, it *could* certainly mean prices will begin to go up.

There are some great tips in there, although they're very freezer-centric. Freezing both chickens and eggs are the cheapest options, followed by using canned and pre-cooked pouched chicken, and dehydrated eggs (REI has a FANTASTIC dehydrated egg product if you can find them).

Perishable food.

2006-02-25T00:04:19Z

paratusblog (slow rate of posting, but good information) has a new contributor who will be focusing on the buying, storing, and preparing of non-perishable foods. The series begins with good old Macaroni and Cheese. Check it out, and consider adding paratusblog to your reading list.

Bunker Craft Time: Single-Point Sling

2006-01-26T03:26:25Z

Got some free time? Let sayuncleblog show you how to make your own single-point sling.

Tsunami lessons.

2005-12-26T17:38:22Z

Via the Washington Times: Tsunami carried lesson to the world on preparedness. Sounds good, right? Here's the kicker:

"The impact of the tsunami has been felt in global calls for early-warning systems, improved procurement practices, more effective fundraising, better relations with host countries, closer coordination between agencies and private charities, and the use of high-octane "special envoys" to cajole governments into turning their pledges into cash."

How many times can you see "rake in cash for gov't" in that sentence, either directly or between the lines? Katrina has shown just how well cash is managed at that level - frankly it's got to be even worse in more corrupt countries and the United Nations. I just don't buy into the idea that preparedness is scalable to the degree that any government can efficiently handle a crisis. I would love to see a return to the ideals of the cold war civil defense setup - help each individual or family figure out what they need to do to be prepared for whatever crises are most likely to impact them. If you must provide direct assistance, do it in the form of tax incentives for those who buy generators, stock food and water, and so on. Distribute surplus MREs and other military equipment to community centers for distribution to civilians. Encourage and empower small communities to work out their own response plans.

"Turning pledges into cash" as a primary goal just doesn't cut it.

Pneumovax23.

2005-11-12T06:39:29Z

Flu tends to kill you in one of two main ways - you get dehydrated and/or you get pneumonia.

In this day and age, hydration is a lot more managable than in, say, 1918. Just make sure you have plenty of clean water and electrolytes around, and drink them often. It's that simple. I like gatorade. I drink it all year long, using the powdered mixes (although in my experience the mix ratios on the labels are about double what they should be - mixed according to the instructions, it's just too sweet and cloying). commander_zero and I buy the mega-tubs from Costco. So far they seem to last almost a year. However, there's lots of alternatives from amazon (and your local grocery store) if you want to be a real geek about it:

* Six bucks will get you a little tub of mix that will make two gallons.
* Fifteen dollars will get you 24 pouches that will make one quart each.
* Thirty dollars will get you 20 pouches that make one gallon each.

If you're cheap, caught in teotwawki without such yuppie accoutrements, and need to mix up something quick and easy out of ingredients you have around the house, oral rehydration mix is as simple as water, sugar, and salt. Sure it tastes awful, but you'll live to have that coca-cola later on.

Where There Is No Doctor and Where Women Have No Doctor are fantastic references (just read the rave reviews) targetted towards people with no medical training whatsoever who are 'practicing medicine' in third world conditions. As such, they spend a good bit of time on dehydration, as it can be a very serious threat. The Rehydration Project also has a lot more information on deyhdration. Remember, if you're prepared for a worst-case scenario (bird flu outbreak that paralyzes travel and overwhelms hospitals, leaving you with only the resources in your home) you're also prepared for anything else.

The big killer when it comes to flu, however, is pneumonia. Our run of the mill flu typically only kills small children (via dehydration) and the elderly or immune-compromised (through pneumonia). In the event that bird flu becomes transmissible from human-to-human, everyone will be more at risk for pneumonia. (link vector: ernunnos)

So it's not the flu itself you really need to worry about - it's the pneumonia. Instead of panicking and wondering if an H5N1 vaccine will (a) be engineered in time to be effective and (b) be produced in such quantities as to be readily available, you could instead worry about the real killer. Fortunately, it would seem there's an easy solution there: pneumovax23.

This vaccine contains twenty-three different strains of the bacteria that cause penumonia and meningitis. It works like any other vaccine, and can be used by pretty much anyone over the age of two. It's given by subcutaneous or intramuscular injection, and usually needs to be given only once in a lifetime. Emphasis mine. One injection, lifetime vaccine for pneumonia. Makes me wonder why I never heard of it before. The list of folks who shouldn't take it is relatively small, and surprisingly, while it's not recommended for pregnant or breast-feeding women, it's not outright advised against, either. Side effects appear to be no worse than for your average over the counter headache tablets.

Granted, we all know that nothing every works perfectly as advertised, but this sure sounds like a winner to me. It's prescription only; talk to your doctor and see what they say. I plan to do the same. Even if we never see a bird flu pandemic (and lets hope we don't), I just can't see a downside to this one.

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. If there are factual inaccuracies here, feel free to correct me.

Articles; Bug-Out Bags

2005-11-03T21:53:40Z

Check out this interesting site: Firearms Tactical. They've got some nifty articles there - wound ballistics, briefs on ammunition tests, tips on target acquisition, articles on legal matters... good stuff. (vector: scrump)

ALso, bandicoot has a great post up on practical testing of his bug-out bag: "How many people actually try to use the stuff in their bugout bag? I mean, living off it for a couple of days. I haven't. So I decided to do some testing and try a few new ideas." Bunkerbabe recommends.

Cyalume and DST.

2005-11-01T21:34:30Z

Today is a great day to go to the store and see if you can pick up some cyalume (glow) sticks on post-Halloween clearance. You can put them on the moulding "shelf" over interior doors in your house, toss a few in your nightstand drawer, and/or use fishing line and hang them on nails anywhere you think they might be useful.

Since daylight savings was just this weekend, this is also a friendly reminder that daylight savings makes a great semi-annual time to check your bug-out bags, first aid kits, and so on for anything that might need to be rotated out.

bunkerbabe @ 2005-10-15T19:33:00

2005-10-16T01:36:20Z

Via desertrat66, a nice little primer on food storage and cooking. Not surprisingly, its called Food Storage Cooking School.

Avian Flu Primer.

2005-10-07T21:46:13Z

While perusing candid's delicious links on economics, I started going through his section on avian flu, since commander_zero and I were discussing it the other day. Lots of interesting info in there. Check it out.

This one is a short Q&A about general economic impacts, looking at a few figures based on the 2003 SARS outbreak, brief discussion of disruption quarantine would cause to just-in-time inventory practices, that sort of thing. But one of the interesting questions was:

What can be done to improve preparedness for an outbreak?
Coxe: We need to learn from the slow response to Hurricane Katrina. For one, there needs to be a dedicated public-health agency that creates a response plan. I know the World Health Organization is working on it. But the problem with WHO is just like the problem with FEMA. WHO can't come into [an outbreak area] without an invitation. They don't have the authority. Someone needs to be given that authority.

I don't have confidence that any local, state, or federal agency has its ducks in a row to the point where it could respond to a large-scale event. I don't care who you give the authority to; I expect them to do a dismal job.

Now, the Commander and I have been discussing a Captain Trips-style flu epidemic off and on lately, since it's that time of year. When I think about the 1918 flu, I can't help but wonder if most of the deaths were more due to living conditions at the time than due to the severity of the flu strain (although I certainly need to do some research on that). Of course, we may be more hygenic now and have better nutrition, general health, and health facilities, but I wonder how much our antibiotics sprees have cost us. And it's not something I particularly worry about - folks have been talking about a coming pandemic for years... I guess all the chicken little-ing has desensitized me after a fashion.

Pandemic Influenza Risk Communication: The Teachable Moment is a much, much more detailed read.

Some excerpts and rambling about avian flu:

Many infectious disease experts and medical journalists right now have similar feelings — a sense of impending disaster, a need to sound the alarm, alienation and frustration that people don’t get it. The tension takes a toll. The sources of H5N1 information sometimes have to struggle to keep their equanimity when talking to the largely apathetic public about an uncertain but potentially catastrophic pandemic. </i>

See, he's talking about me there. I've never had the flu (to my knowledge - bad colds, sure). I've never had a flu vaccination. It may be silly not to get one based simply on the fact that I've never had it, but there you go. What makes the whole thing interesting to me is speculating about the economic and social impacts of a particularly bad flu season. Last years complete disaster of distribution of what little vaccine was available is a great example. And there's nothing out there that makes me think the government will handle it any better if it happens again.

The Pandemic Influenza Risk Communication gives a brief overview of the avian flu (H5N1), which I found very informative. This is the gist:

Because H5N1 has never infected people before, people haven’t built up any natural immunity to it, as we have to the flu strains we face year after year. And of course there is no H5N1 vaccine developed and approved for human use (though researchers are working on several candidates). Moreover, H5N1 is a particularly virulent strain of influenza. It seems to kill up to 70 percent of the people who catch it. That’s almost certainly a higher-than-realistic number; we probably missed a lot of milder cases whose victims recovered without needing medical attention. Still, we know that H5N1 kills far more readily than the typical annual flu strain, which has a mortality rate of way less than one percent. And while most annual influenza viruses kill their victims mostly through secondary infections like pneumonia, which healthy people generally manage to beat, H5N1 seems to kill more directly. Even strong, healthy, young people with good immune systems are vulnerable.

It goes on to say that the way H5N1 kills sounds scary until you realize how difficult it is for people to catch it. However, the belief that's been drumming up all this press over the past few years is that it will mutate into a highly communicable illness. It went from not infecting humans at all, to infecting a few (less than a hundred from what I gather from the article, which means that 70% fatality rate is based on a very small sample) and then dying out because it can't be spread human-to-human... so the theory is that once humans can spread it to other humans, we're toast. Partly the toasting will be due to the fact that while we as a species have slowly developed regular influenza resistance over the years, *bird* flu is a new thing altogether.

When it does, H5N1 will inevitably spread throughout the world. Worldwide mortality estimates range all the way from 2–7.4 million deaths (the “conservatively low” pandemic influenza calculation of a flu modeling expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to 1 billion deaths (the bird flu pandemic prediction of one Russian virologist). The estimates of most H5N1 experts range less widely but still widely. In an H5N1 pandemic, the experts guess that somewhere between a quarter of us and half of us would get sick, and somewhere between one percent and five percent of those who got sick would die — the young and hale as well as the old and frail. If it’s a quarter and one percent, that’s 16 million dead; if it’s a half and five percent, it’s 160 million dead. Either way it’s a big number.

Then factor in the havoc wreaked by real or imagined quarantine conditions, disruption of transportation and distribution of basic goods, what happens when people get scared (rightly or wrongly) and your garbage workers and wastewater folks refuse to go in to work, and your police, fire department, and hospital workers get sick..... big doin's. Just read The Stand - and that was made up. I find it interesting that "So far only Canada is building up domestic vaccine production as part of its pandemic influenza plan. "

Of course, they also caution: "Reality check time: Nobody — nobody — is sure this will happen. Well, the experts are sure some flu strain will produce a pandemic eventually, but they don’t know which and they don’t know when and they don’t know how bad it will be. " Everyone is just trying to encourage people to prepare for worst-case scenarios, like, say, a rarely-seen category 4 hurricane headed towards a City built below sea level. Maybe it never happens, but if it does, and no one is prepared, that's bad ju-ju.

Still, it’s not as if this is their umpteenth worldwide warning and the others all turned out duds. Swine flu, a genuine dud, was 28 years ago. On balance, it would be foolish to ignore such a widespread educated guess among the people whose guesses are most educated. You don’t have to believe a horrific flu pandemic is certain and about to happen to believe preparedness is a good investment.

Sandman (a risk communications expert, and the author of the article I'm quoting out the wazoo) takes a look at the United States' Pandemic Influenza Reponse and Preparedness Plan and seems to find it lacking in terms of adequately preparing the public. One of the "key messages" that the plan recommends local officials get out to folks in the event of a pandemic is "The United States is preparing for a possible reappearance of pandemic influenza by: 1) educating healthcare workers about pandemic influenza and disease diagnosis, 2) enhancing surveillance systems to determine if and where influenza strains with pandemic potential have emerged, 3) developing the capacity to rapidly produce vaccines that will work against pandemic strains, 4) improving laboratory tests for influenza, and 5) enhancing influenza treatment options.” Check out Sandman's critique: Note how over-optimistic this message is on the extent and efficacy of U.S. government preparedness. Note also the over-emphasis on technical solutions, and the absence of messages about the social impacts that will probably dominate the daily life of citizens in at least the early months of a pandemic. A large part of pre-crisis preparedness is helping the public “imagine the real” — but this key message encourages the public to imagine itself in a rather passive role, waiting (but not long) for vaccines and treatments.

One more thing I found interesting:

The experts also need to rethink their approach to face masks, their response to the widespread intuitive sense that when an infectious disease is around, both healthy and sick people ought to wear masks. Yes, we know that ordinary face masks do not prevent airborne spread of viruses. But they cover your mouth and help keep you from touching your face. Mask-wearing is more practical than covering your mouth with your hand when you cough because it works when your hands are full or busy, and it works when you forget — not to mention where people’s hands tend to go after they have blocked a cough (the eye, the doorknob, the cheek of a loved one). During the SARS outbreaks, we noted the strange reluctance of experts and authorities in some countries to recommend, or even tolerate, mask-wearing. Then it seemed to be about sending too worrisome a message; in Toronto, especially, officials didn’t want people wearing masks because they didn’t want to add to public anxiety. (Singapore, on the other hand, positively connoted mask-wearing as a sign of respect for other people’s health, comparing it with the Japanese tradition of people wearing surgical masks when they have colds.) Certainly in a flu pandemic, face masks will do more to alleviate anxiety than to exacerbate it. We continue to be a little bewildered by the ongoing anti-mask bias.

Like I need more reasons to do paranoid germphobe things. :)

I think it best to assume that, just like with any other large-scale disaster (as recent events have proved), you will be on your own. Think about that, then do something about it.

The Pandemic Influenza Risk Communication article is from a fascinating Risk Communication Web Site that is primarily geared towards public health officials, showing them how best to prepare and communicate with their communities in advance of, during, and after a crisis. So it's interesting to see some of the advice they give with that audience in mind. With respect to avian flu, for instance, they hint at nationalization of pharmaceutical companies in the event of a real crisis (however, they're discussing preparedness in a worldwide context; I'm just reading it from an American perspective), and suggest streamlining the vaccine testing and licensing rules, while the author also cautions that all meaningful emergency planning has to be local. It talks about allocating scarce vaccine resources to people who work in critical roles (the aforemention law enforcement, sanitation, and health care employees) before those with the most critical need (seniors and children). Common sense, but the public outcry would be incredible. It was last year when we didn't even have a severe outbreak. At any rate, I'll be making the columns a regular part of my reading list.

Take some time this weekend and read through it; pretty interesting stuff. For lighter reading, check out iflu.org, which seems to be a summary and portal. Next steps for me, personally: read the U.S. Pandemic Influenza Reponse and Preparedness Plan and see what the fedgov islikely to advise state and local governments to do. Do more research on the 1918 Spanish Flu.

For further reading, Futurepundit has quite a few recent articles on avian flu jsut in the past week:

1918 Killer Pandemic Was An Avian Flu
Influenza Hits Preschoolers First
Finland To Vaccinate Entire Population Against Avian Flu (and if you've read the Sandman article, you know this is possibly pointless)
Economic Collapse Avoidable During An Influenza Pandemic
Hungary Could Make Half Million Flu Vaccine Doses Per Week