survival
- USB “keychain” drive
- Pros: they’re durable and can be reused thousands of times. They’re also much smaller than a CD-R.
- Cons: fewer computers have USB slots than CD-ROM drives, although that’s changing as old machines are replaced — almost all new computers have them.
- CD-R
- Pros: blank CD-Rs are cheap, most people have a CD burner (so you probably already have the equipment to make one), and almost every computer has a CD-ROM device to read it. Also, CD-Rs can hold a relatively huge amount of data for pennies.
- Cons: every time you update your data, you have to throw away the old copy or risk packing away the wrong one. CD-Rs are relatively fragile; one fat scratch and your data is lost.
- DVD-R
- Same pros and cons as CD-R, except they hold much more data but are not as widely available as USB slots.
- Free webmail account (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.)
- Pros: access your data from any computer with Internet access. No physical media to lose or destroy.
- Cons: it can take a long time to store or retrieve your data. Not every computer has Internet access. Your files may be larger than your webmail account can hold. If your webmail company is also destroyed in the disaster, you’re out of luck.
- Employment
- Current resume
- Examples of your work
- High school and/or college diplomas
- Letters of recommendation
- References
- Financial
- Bank/investment accounts
- Credit card numbers and expiration dates
- Loan accounts
- Insurance policy numbers
- Contact numbers for all of the companies above!
- Identification
- Baptism/dedication certificates
- Birth certificates
- Driver’s license
- Family photos (also important for morale!)
- Fingerprints
- Marriage certificate
- Passport
- Tax returns
- Voice recordings
- Medical
- Dental records
- Disease records
- Immunization records
- X-rays
- Property
- Deeds and titles
- Wills
- Contact information for lots of friends and relatives, preferably spread over a large geographical area so that they’re not all affected by the same disaster you’re fleeing
- Pick one or two of the most durable media that can hold all of your information.
- Don’t trust the built in Zip encryption.
- Don’t trust the built-in USB keychain drive encryption.
- Don’t ever put your unencrypted data onto your backup media unless you have to.
- Include an (unencrypted) copy of your encryption program’s installer, or a standalone version that can be run directly from your storage media.
- Also include a copy of WinZip or another file extraction utility. Older versions of Windows don’t have that functionality built in.
- Keep current!
- Pack everything inside a small metal pan that you can use for cooking, carrying water, etc.
- Pros: no wasted space or weight
- Cons: small metal pans can get crushed or soaked
- Put everything “fragile” inside a hardened case, like an OtterBox
- Pros: your gear stays dry and intact
- Cons: the box isn’t probably very intrinsically useful
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Instructions
- Short checklist of things you’d never remember to do on your own
- The US Army Survival Manual. Print it small and use a magnifying glass if you need to.
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Tools
- Good, metal knife
- Small multi-tool (for the scissors, screwdrivers, etc.)
- Compass
- Thermometer
- Magnifying glass — possibly a Fresnel lens
- Flashlight with batteries, preferably with a blinker
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Metal dining utensils (that can be sanitized before and after use)
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Fire starters — at least one of:
- Strike anywhere matches in a waterproof safe
- Firestarting piston
- Disposable lighter
- Magnesium/flintbar
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Water
- Personal water filter
- Water purifying straw
- Water purification tablets
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Several sheets of paper and a pencil
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A bottle of alcohol. Distilled, drinkable grain alcohol is best.
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Medicine / Health
- Anti-diarrheals
- Aspirin
- Antihistimines — to counter allergic reactions
- Any other drugs you personally need to stay alive
- Scalpel blades
- Sunscreen
- Suture kit
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Homemade soda can stove
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5 pounds of gorp (“good old raisins and peanuts”)
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Emergency blanket
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Ziploc Baggies
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Camelback water reservoir recently filled with known good water
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100 feet of parachute cord
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Wool cloth. Two shirtweight pieces 45"X 72". One heavier weight 60"X108". These are your clothes, your hammock, your chair, your carryall, etc. Do not substitute cotton!
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Three yards of 36" wide cotton could come in handy as well. This is your hat, your belt, your shoulder bag, your sling, etc.
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Clothing
- Two pair of wool socks
- Waterproof, windproof shell or parka. Yes, even if you’re in a tropical zone.
- Work gloves for digging through post-disaster rubble
- A warm hat
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A pennywhistle or any other tiny musical instrument. If you can turn a disaster into a party, your odds of survival will go up.
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Signalling
- Referee’s whistle
- Mirror
- Mini LED flashlight
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Money — your eventual goal is to get back to civilization
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Repairs
- Mini roll of duct tape
- Sewing needle and thread
- Safety pins
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9’x7’ painting tarp (to make a tent) or a few trashbags
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Slingshot kit — can be used to kill small game or fish
Electronic Survival Kit
So, you’ve made a survival kit to keep you alive until the good guys come to rescue you. Well, now you’re starting life over in a new place. These are some of the things you might want to bring along.
References
How To Carry It
Electronically
Our primary goal is to make our data as easy to access as possible. This is critically important when you don’t know what kind of machine you may have to use to access your data. You might have a beautiful Mac or Unix workstation at home, but if you were at home and could use your computer, then the rest of this would be pointless. Regardless of what you normally use, expect to be using a Windows box to access it.
First, I highly recommend that you combine your files into a single Zip file. That’s because it’s much easier to manage one file than 100.
Second, and this is critically important, use an encryption program to put as password on the zip file! You’re going to be putting a lot of sensitive information in there, so don’t leave it out for any twit to find if you misplace your copy. I highly, highly recommend GNU Privacy Guard, or GPG. A package of it for Windows is available from http://www.gpg4win.org. Under no circumstances should you trust the lame “encryption” (bah!) that comes with some storage media like USB keychain drives, or such as is built into WinZip. I mean it! Use a stand-alone encryption program.
Don’t forget to put a copy of the installer on your backup media so that you’ll be able to unlock your data when you need it!
Third — and this is very important — create the zip file on your computer’s hard drive, then encrypt it, and finally move the encrypted file onto your backup media. You should never copy the unencrypted data onto that media! Even if you delete it afterward, it may be possible to recover the information.
By the same token, don’t decrypt the zipfile onto your backup media. Copy it onto the hard drive of the computer you’re using to access it, then decrypt it and unzip it from there. Of course, if you’re using a very public computer such as a rental at an Internet cafe, then that may actually be the worse option. Trust your own judgment, and let rampant paranoia be your guide.
Physically
A floppy ain’t gonna cut it. Your encrypted zipfile will probably be much larger than will fit on a floppy disk, unless your life is so simple that this is just an academic exercise. Your four main options, in the order I’d recommend them, are:
Remember, don’t forget to store a copy of the encryption program you’re using along with the encrypted data itself! Although you can always download another copy off the Internet, that may be inconvenient (especially if you don’t remember what it’s called because you just watched your house burn down and you’re under extreme duress).
Also, nothing says you can’t use more than one option. Just don’t forget to update all of them whenever you add more information.
Whichever you choose, it’s not a bad idea to store any physical media with your regular survival kit. If disaster strikes, you’re more likely to remember to grab your knife and matches than a CD-R or keychain drive.
The List
Store small amounts of information in a text file using an editor like Notepad (on Windows). Do not store it in a Word document! Believe it or not, many computers don’t have an office suite installed on them, and you’d be seriously limiting your access options at a time when you can least afford it.
When scanning documents, set the resolution to at least 125DPI (200 is preferable); greyscale (instead of color) is fine and will use less space). Use at least 300 for photos. Don’t just blindly turn your scanner to its highest setting, though, or you’ll never get all of your documents to fit onto your media.
Summary
That list is pretty long and odds are you’ll never need it. However, if you do, won’t you wish you’d taken the time to get all this information together? Once you’ve managed to gather it, maintenance should be a snap — just make a new zip archive, encrypt it, and replace your old copy with the new one.
Just remember the basics:
If you do happen to be affected by a local disaster, this information could be incredibly useful. Think about how impressed an interviewer would be to find out that you brought your resume and work samples with you. Imagine how glad the police would be to get a high-quality picture of missing family members. You buy insurance for your house and cars, right? Think of this as cheap insurance for your way of life.
How To Make A Survival Kit
On my birthday in 2005, I read a Slashdot article discussing what things you might want to take with you if you had to evacuate your home. This was only a few months after Hurricane Katrina leveled southern Louisiana and Mississippi, so quite a few people had given this a lot of recent thought.
The article started off talking about which personal documents you should take copies of (driver licenses, marriage certificates, passports, etc.) — in other words, an electronic survival kit. However, the topic soon veered off into the kinds of things you need to physically stay alive. That made me realize that I’ve never made any such preparations, short of putting some bottled water in our tornado shelter. Below is a summary of the recommendations I came across.
Note: This isn’t meant as a list of things you’ll need to form your own private society out in the desert. I have absolutely zero interest in “survivalism”; I just want to have the stuff needed to keep me and my family alive until the National Guard arrives.
Second note: I primarily wrote this for me and my family. It’s biased towards scenarios that I might have to cope with, but completely ignores things that I could never hope to deal with anyway (such as being lost at sea).
References
How To Carry It
There are two schools of thought here:
Your application affects your choice very heavily. If you plain to carry mainly camping gear that’s pretty durable, the first option is probably your best choice. If you expect to carry many fragile items, such as an electronic survival kit or other small electronics, then the second is likely better. I personally use an OtterBox.
The List
Note, some of this is blatantly, word-for-word plagiarized from the above sources. My goal is to condense their ideas into one handy list, and there are only so many ways to say “strike anywhere matches”.