Prepping for disaster scenarios

One thing that is rather important that I didn't mention before is no matter what type of food you are storing, especially canned goods, keep them in somewhat cool place. An Oklahoma family a few years ago survived in their shelter an F4 tornado. It pretty well wiped everything around out. So, they went to get in their canned goods stash to find a lot of the lids on the cans were swollen so whatever was inside them went bad. The man said he had build a storage bin in the shelter but it was up kind of high and so the stuff got hot a lot. Guess he learned to keep them on the floor in the back area where it was cooler. Not sure what his ideal solution would be.

Tom mentioned an important and overlooked issue.

Cash. Lots of cash.

Its all good and well committing resources to buying material needs but that means those material needs have to be moveable.
So its a solution if you have to hunker in place but not if one has to be agile and move.

There is a blog note on the web i have not been able to find again, written by an law enforcement officer of his experience of bugging out during Katrina disaster.

My key take away from his write up was make sure to have a stash of cash at home at all times.
But then, if you do end up in a situation where its needed, DO NOT tell anyone else or let anyone else see what you have.
In addition halve what you have and keep the two halves stashed separately and secretly.
If ones spouse is prone to being a extremely kind caring human being, then do not let the spouse know about the money. Survival is a its me or them situation not a group activity.
Next if u have a planned bug out location, do not invite friends.
Sounds very hard thing to do, but this guy had a nasty experience related to both items i am mentioning.

1) Close friends he invited to his location, despite being warned and told not to invited other people. Those people were not of the same preparedness as he and his group.
2)The "strangers" saw his cash and determined it was now "our cash" and had done little to zero of their own disaster planning and guns were about. If i recall the article correctly he had taken steps to split up his cash unknown to his spouse so he made it through.
But he mentioned how testy the situation became with people that knew they had nothing and needed to share what he had.

In regards cash, in around 2013/4 cannot recall exact year, (grey hair syndrome) we had an ice storm.
I wanted additional gas to that which i had on hand, the only gas station locally that was selling gas was only able to take cash.
Now thats just a simple local example of the need for cash in an extreme weather event.

But.....let me tell you, getting cash from my bank proved to be a serious issue. No not talking about $100 or $300, but when i wanted to draw $5000 out the bank of an account with a great deal more than that in it, i could not. Not without forward notice of a couple of days.
Then, the paperwork became the next issue they said they were obligated to report the withdrawal of such a large sum.
Boy, did i let them have it. Not that it changed the situation.
Yup i am considered a potential criminal for wanting my own money but their executives can rip humanity off of billions in exchange rate rigging, libor interest rate rigging, sub prime loans selling etc but little old me must be up to something with all of $5000 of my own money.

So refusing to be stifled by their nonsense, i just have made a point to draw smaller amounts and avoid conflict with the idiots and ensure i have what i need on hand.
Talk about big brother.

So before you lay all your cash into tangible goods that can be taken from you or need to be moved consider the merits of having loads of greenbacks. They have always worked for me, from Eastern Europe, to Africa , South America and yeah even good old Canada.

Noted Rob. Not to worry. I have had that covered for some years now. And yeah, I know that banks are reluctant to let you have your own money. I make regular cash withdrawals and some gets stashed in multiple locations. But thanks for pointing it out for others to see.

For several years I would just ask for $100 back every time I went to the grocery store (generally twice a week). Didn't take long to accummulate a big stash. I had it in my roll desk (since we are always home), but when we went on our two week sailing vacation, I thought I should "hide" it somewhere less obvious. Well for the last two years, it was hidden even from me . I never really tried to do a search for it figuring it would show up some day (gray hair syndrome). Two months ago, it did. I was cleaning out one of my closet drawers and there it was. Next time I will split it up, hide in two new locations and send my self an email. Also probably keep a piece of paper that is cryptic enough, under my keyboard, telling me where they are at in case the power is out

Brent, I'm at the point in my life where I can hide my own Easter eggs.