Survive Infinite Dangers: The Family Survival Guide of 21st Century Dangers (3 page)

While many of the dangers this book covers are intermixed with politics and world tensions in general, this book is not about politics. A new book about politics or the state of the economy appears almost every day! One more such book is not needed! As you read about each danger the primary reason(s) that might cause them to occur may cause you to think of the primary political or economic (or both) reasons that cause evil people or governments to consider using such a danger to accomplish what non-violent negotiations fails to produce. Hopefully, group actions by good people such as you including actions by groups of countries early enough will avert such dangers from ever becoming real disasters. I hope you are proactive as a person and as a member of groups who work for the good of humanity.

What or who is “evil”? Any group or government who would be the first to use a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) to try to conquer a group or country they consider an enemy. Unfortunately, as long as mankind exists, both good and evil men and women will exist. Nature by itself is not inherently good or evil. It is just nature. A volcano that kills a million people is not evil or good. A volcano is just a volcano no matter what it does or doesn’t do. Not so with mankind who has the God-given ability to be evil or good to others as they so decide. Yes, the author does believe in God and that trust in God is important. The author also believes mankind is the tool of God and can create evil and good. Yes, prayer should be part of survival but this book will confine itself to doing all of the things God has given us the ability to do to protect ourselves and the ability to survive using knowledge and common sense. Prayer is a personal matter and will probably be part of most people’s survival plans but there is no chapter on “religion”. However, I can tell you the Bible is one of the books I have in my personal “survival book library”.

You’ll have to provide the knowledge (that includes personal leadership) and the ability to remain calm when all those around you may be in a panic mode. The old saying “you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution” is never so true than when it comes to survival. Be part of the solution, never part of the problem! Taking a few minutes after a disaster occurs to calm down, learn as much as possible about what happened and then plan your coming hours, days and weeks is mandatory. You may need to stop and “meditate” every so often as circumstances change. Take that time! Doing anything in frantic panic mode just to be “doing something” is a recipe for disaster! “Fail to plan and you guarantee failure”. Basically, “plan your work and work your plan!” Those are two phrases of wisdom you should never forget! This is not a time to be a hermit but also not a time to try to be a leader if you are naturally mentally unstable in times of stress. If so, admit it and let others lead. You’ll still be part of the solution following directions of stable, common sense calm leaders.

Psychiatry tells us most people prefer to be followers. Every group must have a leader or leaders that instill feelings of stability and safety in their followers. Fear and panic is contagious! So is calm. A good leader has the innate ability to appear he or she understands “the situation” and knows what to do to keep everyone safe and secure even if they don’t after some unexpected disaster occurs during the period while the world is in chaos outside of your safe area. The term safe area or word area is used in this book to describe the area where survival supplies are kept and your survival group plans to remain as long as is needed which usually means until it is safe to venture back into the world. You probably will have the unexpected (seldom!) need to leave your area during your waiting time but do so with everyone well-armed and be ready for anything! The term group is used in this book to describe a family, a group of friends or neighbors who have agreed in advance to live together and protect each other after a disaster occurs. Everyone in your group should already know each other very well and be good friends who care about the welfare of all people in their group. Your area might be a group of homes in a neighborhood “connected” together by radio(s). A cul-de-sac where the entrance can be barricaded and all those living in the cul-de-sac are fully committed members of your group is perfect. Members take turns “manning” (“man” means man or woman in this book) the barricade and other “outposts” around the perimeter of your neighborhood. A single family is at a real disadvantage as someone needs to be awake and on-guard 24 hours a day. Better yet, in multiple locations. A group can be friends who are within a short distance of a single location (such as one person’s basement).

The group works together to provision that one location to be the common area and all head to it at the first sign of trouble. As is repeated several times elsewhere in this book, do not “advertise” your area even to close friends and relatives unless they are members of your group. They can probably be trusted but who knows when one might drop a comment at a party if “survivalism” comes up in conversation. You want others not in your group to believe you are in as much trouble as they are after a disaster occurs. They may wonder “where did so and so disappear to?” but I suspect they’ll have more important matters to deal with then trying to find you. Also, if a member doesn’t fully commit their time and resources (mostly money to buy supplies) do not hesitate to tell that person or family of the group’s concerns and don’t hesitate to politely ask someone to leave if they don’t alter their ways and attitude. Their repeatedly saying “I’m too busy at work to help out and I’m short of cash” is not acceptable. This can be a matter of life and death. Individuals and families are either hard-working committed members of your group or they are OUT! OK? And be sure to select leaders that everyone agrees with and on. Everyone should have clearly assigned duties during preparation and in the days to even months after a disaster occurs. No “dictators” but also no decisions by a “general kind of maybe” vote. Everything has to be decisive.

Allowing new people into a group after a disaster occurs must be done with great care and you must be prepared to forcefully say “NO!” The safety and welfare of your group comes first. As I say, if someone “joins” but then does little, or no, work to help in preparation or provides little, or no, monetary resources to buy provisions should be told (polite but firm) they will not be part of the group. Wish them well and firmly say good-bye.

Six months living together in (probably) a small space requires people who are reasonable, work together, are even tempered, “pull their weight” and (hopefully) each possess some unique skill helpful to your group. A paramedic, doctor or nurse neighbor and a carpenter/plumber as well as trained ex-military of the Navy SEAL level are members you should be so lucky to have! Assign duties in advance! Insist everyone become as expert as possible in their assigned duties. One might be firearms and another medical assistance. I’m sure you can think of several dozen important skills. Everyone should have a backup for their responsibilities for obvious reasons. Classes on every skill I can think of are offered by junior colleges, groups like the Red Cross and so on. Lack of training of the skills someone was assigned to handle can be deadly. There is no excuse. Advance training must be done unless the skill or skills are already at the expert level so assign duties then insist and monitor the training progress of each member of your group. Have regular meetings and, in particular, discuss the progress of the learning of the duties of each individual. Those who have put off learning their skills should be encouraged to “hurry up” but, if required, the group must be prepared to ask that member to leave. A warning will be sufficient 99% of the time. Pick your members carefully and quietly. Do not post a notice in a neighborhood newsletter! Your group must be stealth (refer to the Stealth chapter). As much as those in your group may wish to tell family and friends – they must not! At the most, give them a copy of this book and vaguely suggest they may want to form their own group. Be vague about what you are doing unless you want 500 people at your front door after a disaster! Use common sense.

New dangers will never stop being invented as technology continues to progress. Stay tuned” and keep checking the Web site
www.infinitedangers.com
for new dangers discovered after the printing of this book. Be assured; this madness will never end! “The Genie is Out of the Bottle!” But, surprise! -- Protection from these new man-made dangers will usually be easy, surprisingly inexpensive, easy to understand and easy to put to use. The media, other writers, “experts, governments and so on making protection from current and yet to be invented dangers out to be complex “rocket science” is a major disservice to the general public. For example, the dangers of anthrax and “dirty” bombs may be relatively complicated to produce but protection is not! Just like you keep a tool box (I hope) and a spare tire in your car for basic automobile emergency protection, you should do the same for your family protecting yourselves against potential “21
^st
century man-made dangers”. The Department of Homeland Security Web site (that few read) recommends all individuals and families take many of these precautions and prepare but how many people have ever even been to their Web site or listened to one of their public service commercials?; hmmm, perhaps one in 500? I’d guess one in 5,000 is a more accurate number!

What percentage of people would have a clue what to do if any of these new dangers became real? Would you guess almost none? You’d be correct! But what if these same people had a warning of even a day or two? Would you change your answer to 100% and would you be correct? Yes! Why not prepare now if a probable 95% protection rate is cheap and easy? Be honest; you probably fear ridicule from family and friends. Don’t say “no, no, no – I’m above that!” Well, you’re not. I wasn’t either until I “got over it”. It is human nature not to want to be ridiculed or laughed at for doing something out of the ordinary like appearing to be overly paranoid. Is buying home fire insurance being paranoid? Of course not! Being prepared for unexpected major disasters isn’t either. Far more people are affected each year than have their houses burn down. Think of the millions affected by hurricane Katrina – did millions of homes burn down that year? No!

Other reasons include (1) “no one has told me what to do and buy” (that excuse is gone – you now have this book!) and (2) “I’ll do it when I have extra time”. Guess what? You’ll not make that time until ten seconds after (fill in the blank) “danger” has struck. Too late! Then join the screaming hoards of panicked people who will fight to the death over rapidly depleting resources needed to sustain life or just sit, use up what little resources you have until you die or flee (probably the quickest way to die – see the “Flee or Stay” chapter)

Just when you thought all the new dangers that seem to have come out of nowhere are known another entirely new group appears of which the “talking head experts” on TV seem to know little about (but always have plenty to say and write)! When you carefully read or think about what they wrote or said you realize they actually have no more of a clue than you do! All of us often witness the spectacle of “experts” arguing on live television as the latest “danger” previously unknown wrecks havoc. What’s a person to do! Well, you want to be a person who KNOWS what to do! And you will be one of a small percentage of people who WILL know the extent of the danger, how much or how little to react and exactly what to do; all this while many others become part of the problem in a state of blind mindless panic.

Almost every day you learn of a new “danger” from the media. You’re expected to dutifully add it to your already long list of (mostly) technology based dangers even though you’re actually (not) told calm and detailed information about each one. Much of it is the same thing repeated over and over and may or may not be accurate and/or complete. But, above all, worry! And (most important) “stay tuned to our station! And do not remain calm! We’ll keep repeating the same ‘breaking news’ over and over but really say nothing new that wasn’t said in the first five minutes yesterday when the story first broke”. What a disservice our media does when it could be a life saving resource. But they’ve rarely done anything other than stoke the flames of panic in a “disaster” that may be nothing more than an approaching rain storm that never even arrives!

Stay tuned!? No way! You’ll flip your remote control so fast the screen become a blur. All you want is just one sliver of something new and helpful if you and your family and/or group are, or will be, in danger or if your friends or relatives in some other city or area are in danger. Instant news 24/7 on 100 channels all saying the exact same thing! How useless is that! And when they do say something it is likely the “talking heads” haven’t a clue of what they just said means! But, if you’ve read this book, there is a good chance you will know far more than they do! You’ll shake your head at some of the panic-mode wrong information being blurted out just so they can be saying something.

Don’t they realize people are hanging onto their every word and lives may depend on what they say or omit? Sure, I’d like to sell more books but my primary purpose for writing this book is not monetary. If I make enough money with this book, I intend to put a copy of it into the hands of every media news producer in the country – for free.

When the anthrax attack of 2001 occurred, some media outlets took as long as an hour to even learn what anthrax was, the danger it could present and what, if anything, should viewers and listeners be doing to protect themselves and if protection was even needed if you were thousands of miles away. As it turned out, it was isolated to a small area and a few people died. Even one person dying is one person too many but, in the time it took for the “authorities” to react and the media to spread correct and complete information to the general public, a coordinated spraying by an enemy of, say, Washington, D.C. with weapons grade anthrax with a dozen modified crop sprayer aircraft a few million people could be lethally sprayed so that death would be imminent! Response time to unexpected emergencies (terrorists want their attacks to be unexpected as if you didn’t know!) has improved but is still (in my opinion) a bureaucratic nightmare with government departments fighting with each other (commonly called “turf wars”).