The average steel bunker, base design, is going to run you over $20,000 for installation. I think that most preppers with a spare $20,000 at this moment would use it for several things other than that expensive doomsday bunker. Just the purchase of land itself would be a great investment for the average prepper.

This price reflects a considerably basic shelter. It is not something that you are going to be happy with. You will use it when the tornado sirens go off or if you are told to seek shelter from a dangerous thunderstorm. However, a bunker at this price will not be the grand survivalist home base that you would like it to be. Therefore, you will be spending tens of thousands of dollars and merely settling.

There is a way to build a cheap bunker in your backyard that can protect you from many disasters and be used as an alternate storage space for preps.

Earth Bags

Have you ever heard of the earth bag? This is a modern building method that uses minimal materials to build literal homes above ground or underground! Earth bag building can yield incredible structures that will take your breath away but also build simple ones that are highly effective.

Most preppers can understand the value of a root cellar. The earth bag is a great method to consider for building your own root cellar outback.

Earth bag building is basically the process of layering sandbags, filled with dirt. You add barbed wire between each layer, and you can even use lumber for some minimal framing, but it is not necessary. When it comes to bunker building earthbags are a great option because they are one of the few building materials not affected by moisture.

Cost

Because of the minimal material requirements, the cost of building a backyard bunker will be significantly cheaper than the steel model we talked about above. I mean substantially cheaper.

Let’s take a look at the cost to build a bunker like this in your backyard.

Building Your Bunker

1. What Kind of Bunker

Before you fill a single earth bag you need to sit down and consider what you are building a bunker for. The reasons can be quite different depending on the person. If you are looking for a safe shelter to hide in during a tornado that is going to look a lot different than a bunker designed to live out the apocalypse.

In this step you should really sit down and draw the entire project out. What do you want for this bunker and what don’t you want? Also, how can you make this shelter as structurally sound is possible by using a circular shape or some other method.

A great plan will result in a great bunker and the opposite is true, too!

2. Digging Your Hole

If you can bring a backhoe in for this that is probably the way to go. By planning out your bunker you should at least have the dimensions of your bunker. Now you are going to have to dig this space out.

You can build your bunker so that the very top of it is a above ground. However, this won’t protect you from a nuclear blast.

Digging the hole for your bunker is about the worst part of this whole process.

3. Framing

If you are building a corridor or a larger style bunker you should consider framing that bunker with some wood, internally. Earthbags are great but building a roof will require some wood for the earthbags to sit on. A simple frame topped with strong pallets can be just what you need to stack the earthbags on and keep them sturdy and secure overhead.

If you go with a circular style earthbag home, you don’t even need a frame for the roof. Your circles just decrease in size gradually as you taper the roof.

It’s a remarkable building material that can literally work without anything else but bags, dirt, and barbed wire.

4. In and Out

If you are going to build a bunker out of anything you should also plan on having a way in and a way out. Otherwise, you could just be building an earthbag coffin for you and your family.

The good news, you can literally dig and build steps using earth bags. They can become your staircase from the surface, down into your bunker.

Now, what you do with doors and entranceways is your personal preference. All I am going to say is: get creative!

5. Start Filling and Stacking

By this point you should be able to grab a shovel and start filling bags. The best way to do this is to lay the bags around the pile of dirt that you removed with the backhoe. Get a few people around that pile of dirt with bags and begin filling them. Closing your filled bags is nothing fancy, you can simply fold up the remaining top of the bag and stick a nail through it.

Old tires are a great first layer if you want something other than just earthbags at the bottom of your bunker. You can also use tires just as a perimeter layer. Of course, there is nothing wrong with simply building that first layer with earthbags completely.

Continue to build layer upon layer with razor wire between each. Before long you will have walls and even a roof. It will take energy and the more people you have the better it will go, but before long the bunker will be finished from merely stacking bags filled with dirt!

6. Bury and Conceal

Now that your earthbag bunker is fully built you can cover the roof of your new bunker with the same dirt you pulled out of the ground to make the space.

Not only should you cover your new bunker location, but you should consider concealment, too. At the very least your entrance and exit ways should be concealed.

You can grow thorned bushes all around them or just allow the natural landscape to grow back and conceal them.

Most preppers assume that a doomsday bunker is just too far out of reach. While you might not wind up with a massive set of corridors that is outfitted like a real home, you could have a simple bunker of your own. You might even use this bunker as something of a root cellar while you wait for a serious disaster to strike.

You can add electrical and other amenities to your earthbag bunker, you just need to take the time to plan for all that in the beginning.

No matter how you design it or what you plan on doing with it, your bunker can become a reality. You can also learn a very impressive skill for building shelter using some dirt, bags, and razor wire. In survival, knowing how to make shelter is everything!

Have you ever wondered what makes a person snap? What causes a normal, quiet, everyday citizen, loving mother, or doting father to lose it all and fight like a caged animal? What can cause a small village to rise up and rebel against an oppressive police force and start killing them? What is the switch that gets flipped that causes a city to pour two million people into the streets, chanting and demanding to be heard by their government?

Lately it feels more and more as though we are on standing on the edge of some yawning precipice peering over the crest into darkness. What is more troubling to me is that we have been down this path before. The sense of unease is almost palpable to me sometimes; it is more evident if you are paying attention. If you are able to eliminate the white noise of the world for a minute; hit the pause button on the playlist of daily life for a while and look around, listen, you may start to recognize that you too are caught up in events that will soon change all our lives.

For several years I have felt an unsettling sense that we need to be prepared, that life is going to throw us a big, fat, greasy curve ball soon and we better not be caught napping. To try and proactively address that warning voice I started planning and taking steps to prepare my family to be able to weather events in the future. I am certainly not alone in this concern as you can easily see by the tremendous growth of the prepper movement. In the spectrum of probable events, there are a lot of potential scenarios. Natural disasters and emergencies occur every day all over the world, but you have to broaden your gaze and look to current events and history as well. One of the things that I think is a valid potential event to consider is a collapse of our way of life which leads to an authoritarian oppressive government.

Are we reaching a tipping point?

We have seen in recent events, by now almost too numerous to mention, the effects of a rising frustration with the way things are. It isn’t necessary to go into all of the individual reasons, but as a society there are more and more outpourings of frustration on a global scale. There are increasingly tightening restrictions against people. There is a manipulation of markets and the economy. There is a great increase in the loss of freedom and there is a more open antagonism and almost outright animosity by Government towards their people.

Governments exist either because they have come to power through force and violence or they have been elected and given power by the people. The force and violence crowd usually have their roots in the military and we like to call them Dictators. There have been a ton of them throughout history; Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong iL and now his son, Saddam, Gaddafi, the list goes on and on. Dictators don’t care about the people and usually kill anyone who gets in their way. It is a fact that government has killed more people than any other cause, disease or reason.

The other side of the coin is what is usually called Democracies. I am lumping a lot of governments in here I know, but the democracies are usually elected and formed with the consent of the people with the noble goal of securing rights or protecting the people over whom they govern. Almost without fail however, Democratic Governments eventually do not want to answer to the people and at some point they most certainly will not be told what to do by the people to the point of ignoring the will of the people (for the people’s own good of course). Now these governments that are supposed to secure the liberties of their people are becoming more openly hostile to the same people they have sworn to defend. Funnily enough the democratically elected governments now seem to want to hang on to power with the same methods of force and violence as dictators. How else can you explain arming themselves with ammo, ignoring the constitution, purchasing assault vehicles and preparing to confiscate firearms?

When governments will steal money outright from the citizens in order to pay bills that were not incurred by the people we have a problem. When government spies on its people and uses that information against them punitively we have a problem. When Government uses the force of the military that was supposed to defend the people that was paid for by the people, for the purposes of killing the people, we have a big problem. When someone brings to light crimes by the government and is labeled as the one who is a danger, we have a problem.

The problem is that governments around the world are viewing their people as the problem and there really seems to be only one way throughout history that this is ever rectified. My fear is that we are already set on a course that won’t be changed with laws, great political leaders, or a return to the values of a golden age in time long past.

The Fine Line – The Straw that breaks the camel’s back

The fine line between someone who is a law-abiding citizen and a murderer is one that exists purely in our souls. There is nothing physical that is different from a person who follows the rules and someone who breaks them. The urge to pull the trigger isn’t something you can see and it isn’t a trait to test for, so it must be our own individual sense of right and wrong. Of good and evil.

I know that some will argue that a psychopath is definitely recognizable by character traits and maybe even brainwaves or chemistry. That may be true, but you can be a psychopath (clinically) without ever hurting anyone. By the same token, you can take a life while being perfectly “sane”.

If you hold a knife in your hand, you are just as capable of using that to stab or cut someone as the murderer in the next town, but that thought never enters the mind of an overwhelming majority of people. A baseball bat in your hands can easily be swung with great force connecting it to the back of a skull, but this thought never appears in our heads; that is unless we are forced into a corner. When a person is in desperate fear for their lives, the unspoken rules of right and wrong are broken. The processes that we follow every day are overridden in the cause of rage or self-preservation. What was unthinkable before is now very real, necessary and even righteous with the right circumstances.

When the right buttons are pushed, anyone can lose it. When the fear of dying or of losing someone you love is so overpowering, the “fine line” that has been keeping us sane, law-abiding and good is easily shattered. When this happens, all bets are off.

We as a people, a country are still rather firmly attached on the good side of this line. We have not yet completely been driven to abandon all hope and lash out. We have not yet been so harmed, have not gotten to the point that we have nothing to lose and are ready to lose it, but this may be coming in the future.

The force and violence that is being used now to quell the dissatisfaction of people globally is increasing. The methods to cease the complaining of the rabble has been relatively minor with some exceptions. Tear gas, rubber bullets, mace and batons only work up to a point though. When the time comes that people can no longer abide, there won’t be enough police to stop them using riot control techniques. The military doesn’t have enough people to stop the entire population unless those people peacefully agree to surrender, so what will they do? Do you believe any government will quietly step down and admit that they are obviously not speaking for the people anymore? No. They will resort to more force and violence and people will die. Either that or you have a coup like they had in Egypt and guess who took over to “restore order”? Yep, the Military.

What will be the inevitable response by the authorities?

The Chinese people who started to revolt against the police in their town did so because the authorities were “placing restrictions on their culture, language and religion”. China is no picnic compared to America and we clearly know they have lived through far worse oppression than we have, but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back for them?

The protests which turned into an estimated two million citizens of Brazil had started simply enough with a protest over a rise in the rates of public transportation.

In America, what will be the trigger that causes people to rise up and say we aren’t going to take this anymore and more importantly what will happen when/if we do?

What will happen if we don’t change the path we are on?

There is a quote that has always struck me as very sad and telling from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his book The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn was a Russian who was sentenced to 8 years in a Soviet prison camp for essentially writing things about Stalin that the government didn’t like. During this time in Soviet Russia, to stifle dissent, millions were killed or sent to prison camps. In this passage Solzhenitsyn is talking about regret that everyone felt because they simply went along with this tyranny and didn’t oppose it.

 “AND HOW WE BURNED IN THE CAMPS LATER, THINKING: WHAT WOULD THINGS HAVE BEEN LIKE IF EVERY SECURITY OPERATIVE, WHEN HE WENT OUT AT NIGHT TO MAKE AN ARREST, HAD BEEN UNCERTAIN WHETHER HE WOULD RETURN ALIVE AND HAD TO SAY GOOD-BYE TO HIS FAMILY? OR IF, DURING PERIODS OF MASS ARRESTS, AS FOR EXAMPLE IN LENINGRAD, WHEN THEY ARRESTED A QUARTER OF THE ENTIRE CITY, PEOPLE HAD NOT SIMPLY SAT THERE IN THEIR LAIRS, PALING WITH TERROR AT EVERY BANG OF THE DOWNSTAIRS DOOR AND AT EVERY STEP ON THE STAIRCASE, BUT HAD UNDERSTOOD THEY HAD NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE AND HAD BOLDLY SET UP IN THE DOWNSTAIRS HALL AN AMBUSH OF HALF A DOZEN PEOPLE WITH AXES, HAMMERS, POKERS, OR WHATEVER ELSE WAS AT HAND?… THE ORGANS WOULD VERY QUICKLY HAVE SUFFERED A SHORTAGE OF OFFICERS AND TRANSPORT AND, NOTWITHSTANDING ALL OF STALIN’S THIRST, THE CURSED MACHINE WOULD HAVE GROUND TO A HALT! IF…IF…WE DIDN’T LOVE FREEDOM ENOUGH. AND EVEN MORE – WE HAD NO AWARENESS OF THE REAL SITUATION…. WE PURELY AND SIMPLY DESERVED EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD.”  – ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN

Will this be our fate too? Will we slowly be conditioned to accept atrocities like this and to be completely defanged so that we can be herded into camps without so much as a whimper as well? That’s crazy you say! Is it? Right now, our government is hunting down someone who simply exposed how they (government) were illegally spying on all of us. Our government is buying arms and stockpiling weapons for use domestically not in some war. Our government has the IRS actively harassing a single political/opposition party. Our government has shown that they will lock down a town and go door to door while making the citizens stay cowered inside. Our government has stated that they can imprison anyone without cause for an indefinite amount of time.

Can you seriously argue that we aren’t headed down the same path as others have in our not too distant past?

This is not a call to armed Revolution, but I do think we should all be very wary of this course we are on and the echos of history. We should not be silent in the face of increasing oppression. We should not simply go along quietly because of the fear that we may get in trouble, or worse that we believe the government is only looking out for our best interests. You only need to look at the people in Poland who quietly went into the Warsaw ghettos. You don’t have to look any further than the Holocaust to see what quietly going along will get you.

This is not a fate that I will be bringing on my family.

In a previous article, I wrote about how to harden one’s home against intruders, which detailed how to make a home far more difficult to enter.

In these tumultuous times, we have seen too many examples of riots, looting, and unrest sweep across the globe. Whether it be civil unrest, protests turned riots, or pandemic related panic many events can see the criminal element and looters at your property line.

In these cases, sometimes a good offense is the best defense, and having an early warning system in place can and will be the deciding factor in the security of your home. With a few items from around the house, you can build some tripwire triggers that will act as an early warning system to alert you to where intruders are entering your property.

The Legal Stuff

What I am describing is what‘s commonly known as a ‘booby trap’. While these early warning systems are not designed to inflict any harm to those who trigger them, it is up to you to research the rules, regulations, and laws regarding such devices in your area.

The Traps

These two traps, whose construction I will detail, have similar purposes but they achieve them in different ways.

The first is very simple, a rat trap, paracord, zap straps, and a glowstick is all you will need to be alerted to where the bad guys are. This method has a significant issue which is that the only way you will know that the trap is triggered is to be looking at it, this means someone in the house has to be on watch looking towards the trap to see it get triggered.

The second is not overly complex but requires some electronic components and a little bit of experimentation. The idea behind it is that when the trap is triggered a LED light will alert you to an intruder.

The Rat Trap

The first trap I will describe is by far the simplest and requires minimal equipment and skills to construct. It works by placing a glowstick in such a way that when a rat trap is triggered the spring arm of the trap snaps closed on the glowstick shattering the vial inside of the stick. The trap is triggered by a tripwire of paracord, bank line, or wire.

Materials

• 1 – Rat Trap
• 1 – Glowstick
• Paracord
• Zap straps
• Drill and drill bit

Instructions

Step One – Determine where the glowstick is going to mount on the rat trap. Then drill holes on either side of the glowstick to accommodate a zap strap.

Step Two – Mount the glowstick using a zap strap making sure that the glass vial inside will be broken by the spring arm when the trap is triggered.

Step Three – Attach paracord to the trigger of the trap. You may want to modify the trigger to make it easier to attach the cordage.

Step Four – Mount the trap in a suitable location then run the paracord to form a tripwire. Do not securely tie it off yet since you have yet to set the trap.

Step Five – Set the trap as normal and very carefully adjust the tripwire keeping in mind that because of how sensitive the trigger mechanism is the tripwire will not be taut. Also, the longer the tripwire the heavier the line and in turn, the looser it will have to be. It is best to keep these lines short or made from lightweight materials.

The LED Trap

This trap requires a few electronic components which you can easily find or scavenge from old electronics. For this article, I have shown the simple circuit on a breadboard, but you will want to assemble the components more permanently through soldering.

#1. An important point of note is that I have not specified a value for the resistor in this circuit. The reason for this is that the longer the run of wire you need to use the greater the resistance that wire will provide the circuit and in turn, there will be an associated voltage drop. When constructing this circuit, test it using the full lengths of wire to ensure that the LED’s light to your satisfaction. Do this before placing the traps in position.

#2. Use a separate power source for each trigger. You may find that it is better to use higher voltage batteries for this project depending on how long the runs of wire are.

#3. One advantage of this trigger is that you can place the LED’s on a cardboard map of the property.

In this way, you will have a visual representation of exactly where the incursion is taking place.

Materials

• Wooden or plastic clothespin
• Length of two lead insulated wire of a thin gauge. It needs to be long enough to run from your tripwire location to where you are going to install your warning light.
• Resistor
• LED bulb
• 9-volt battery connector
• 9-volt battery
• Electrical tape
• Metal tape

Instructions

First Step – Wrap the jaws of the clothespin with metal tape so that they are wrapped all around. This is what completes the circuit so make sure that the only place the two sides touch is where the jaws of the clothespin meet.

Second Step– Split and strip the ends of the two-lead wire then attach one lead to the outside of one of the jaws of the clothespin with a piece of electrical tape. Repeat for the other side and secure the wire to the clothespin further with a wrap of tape.

Third Step – Construct the circuit by connecting the positive of the battery to the resistor then to the anode of the LED.

Then – Split and strip the other end of the twin lead wire and connect one of them to the negative terminal and the other to the free lead of the LED.

Step Five – Test the circuit and the brightness of the LED. You may want to change the resistor value to increase the LED brightness.

Step Six – Use a zip tie that has been fashioned into a loop as a non-conductive trigger for the tripwire.

Step Seven – Place the trigger and set the tripwire. I like to use a nail or screw through the hollow part of the clothespin spring to secure it.

This trigger can also be placed on doorways as well by securing the zip tie to the door and the trigger to the door frame.

Placement

These devices are useless if you place them where no one would walk. The best way to figure out where to set these devices is to approach your house from the perspective of someone who would want to break in. Look for areas that provide good cover from view and identify avenues of ingress that a looter or other criminal would likely use.

If you place them in areas that are often used by yourself or your family be sure that everyone is very aware of the locations of each trap. Also, be aware of any possible four-legged intruders as well because you may have to adjust the heights of the tripwires to avoid false alarms.

The advantage of early warning systems such as these is that in a lot of instances the materials for these are laying around the garage or homestead.

The rat trap versions are good for placing at longer distances and if you have access to night vision and IR glowsticks they can be an almost invisible version of a trip flare.

While the LED version takes a lot of experimentation and a bit of skill it can in a lot of ways be a better early warning system because it only requires one person to be aware of and looking at one set of lights rather than trying to keep watch of several glowstick traps.

Thirty years ago, most of the cars used carburetors, and only a few people believed that electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a real threat.

Nowadays, even NASA admits that EMP is one of those events we could not recover from: it would stop all infrastructures that sustain modern society which rely so much on electronics. No communication, to transportation, and no escape with your fancy new car out of the crowded urban jungle.

So if you are one of those readers who wish to consider EMP-resistance as a factor in selecting a bug-out vehicle, then you should not miss this article.

I have been doing the survival thing for some time and I see precious few absolutes when it comes to survival and a whole lot of gray area. And I am not a mechanic or car salesman by trade, but I do have a solid background in technology and understanding of EMP as well what most people would term as vast experience as a self-reliant consumer.

Considering this, I will take a poke at answering some questions about EMP and how it would affect automobiles, which were asked by our readers after our recent article that described some top picks for ideal bugout vehicles.

9 EMP-Related Factors to Think Of When Buying Your Vehicle

First, there are factors to consider in choosing a post-EMP bug-out or survival vehicle:

1. Benefits of Diesel

A large and strong enough EMP could stop the extraction, refinement, distribution and sale of fossil fuels. Whatever gas you have on hand could be all the gas you get for years. The more highly a fuel is refined, the shorter its storage life. Diesel is less refined than unleaded so diesel stores longer.

You make biodiesel from crops that you grow. Diesel motors are somewhat simpler than gasoline motors in that they do not have an ignition system. This cuts down on some vulnerable parts.

Most tractors also run on diesel too, so for many homesteaders, it is worth considering.

2. Fuel Capacity

You can add oversized and/or additional fuel tanks to many vehicles, increasing the vehicle’s range. A post EMP world will likely have far fewer gas stations, if any. To get at any of remaining fuel, you will need a pump and hose like the Jackrabbit by Black & Decker.

3. Cargo or Towing Capability 

By the time you pile in what will surely be everything you own in this world, your spouse, your 2.4 kids, grandma and the golden retriever, you may be looking for ways to increase your vehicle’s carrying capacity. So cargo space, a trailer hitch, roof rack, swing outs and so forth will come in handy. For many, the vehicle will likely double as their home.

4. Off-Road Capability

Features such as 4-wheel drive, a full size spare, plenty of ground clearance, all-terrain tires, lockers, extraction or trail gear, towing points, winch and off road lighting will come in handy post-EMP because roads will no longer be maintained, disabled vehicles and vehicles that have run out of fuel will litter the roadway. Imagine the highway or even your own street after a snowstorm without any snowplows or drivers to remove the snow and 4-wheel drive and over-size tires starts to look like a pretty good idea.

5. Ease of Maintenance & Repair

Simplicity is a good thing when it comes to survival. Without computers, there is only so much to “do it yourself” on newer vehicles so older vehicles have greater appeal. A good repair manual and well-equipped toolbox are mission-critical equipment.

6. Commonality of Parts

An expensive custom vehicle might look cool online or be fun to daydream about, but after a HEMP, the first time it needs a part, you might wish you bought something a little more pedestrian (no pun intended). Better still would be 2 or 3 less-expensive vehicles as opposed to a single vehicle that strains your financial resources.

My grandfather did this and I learned it from him. He would take multiple beat-up vehicles and turn them into fewer good ones … and have a bunch of spare parts left over. A bunch of spare parts would be a good thing post-EMP.

7. Fewest Possible Microelectronics, Computers or Chips

Some newer vehicles have in excess of 100 processors that run on miniscule amounts of power. They sense and control virtually every function of the vehicle and are very sensitive to EMP.

How far are you going to get without an engine, fuel injection, transmission or 4-wheel drive system? Sure, car manufacturers take reasonable precautions to shield them, but not against such great field strengths or over the entire frequency range EMP covers. Any transistor-based technology is vulnerable.

Avoid vehicles with the following systems, rewire them or replace them with their non-electronic counterparts and/or stock replacements in a Faraday cage:

• PCM (Powertrain Control Module)
• Anti-lock Braking System
• Electronic Fuel Injection
• Electronic Ignition
• Computers Controlling Critical Systems
• Consumer Electronics
• Long Antennas
• Negative Battery Terminal Grounded to Vehicle Frame

8. Overt vs Covert

It is often best to blend in as opposed to standing out. In the city, that might mean driving a white sedan or van. In the bush, it might mean a camouflage or matte earth tone paint job.

Other times, looking like you are not worth tangling with might be the better option.

9. Conductive Metal Body

For the best EMP-resistance, choose a vehicle with conductive metal body enclosing the engine and passenger compartment or cab over a vehicle with body panels made of fiberglass, plastic or any other non-conductive material.

How to EMP-Harden Your Auto

If your vehicle already has these features or you are already doing these things, then you are already part of the way there. There are many features to look for and modifications to make to both your vehicle and your SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) regarding that vehicle.

No matter which automobile you choose, there is always more that can be done to minimize the effect of HEMP on the vehicle.

• Ground all conductive components of the vehicle to a single point on the chassis. Do not ground them to the earth.
• Park in an EMP-protected garage: I described how to build such a structure in the article How To Turn Your Q-Hut Into an EMP-shielded Home.
• Do not connect your vehicle to an unprotected engine oil warmer.
• Rewire with shielded wiring: Verify that your wiring is shielded or replace all you can with shielded wiring.
• Re-bond metal body panels: Remove body panels and make sure that you have good conductive bonds between body panels by removing paint and installing conductive gasket material or make sure you have metal on metal contact with as much overlap as possible. This will help the body conduct energy through the vehicle skin like the skin of a Faraday cage. Just do not allow yourself to be fooled into thinking that the vehicle skin is without holes that compromise its integrity. EM shielding is not all or nothing. Every little bit helps.
• Route wiring close to the vehicle frame
• Install ferrite clamps or snap on cores on cable ends
• Protect cable entry and exit points with surge suppression: This will need to be fast-clamping surge protection faster than one millisecond that will handle high voltages. (Think lightening protection.)
• Mechanical ignition (points and condenser)
• Install EMP-rated surge protection on antennas
• Mechanical fuel & water pumps
• Carburetor or mechanical fuel injection
• Keep spares of vulnerable parts you cannot replace in a Faraday cage: You may have a vehicle that is mostly good to go, but it still parts like a starter, alternator and voltage regulator that do not contain microelectronics, but could still conceivably be affected. Get some extras and store them in a Faraday cage. They do not even have to be new. Pull them off a junk vehicle and test them if you cannot afford new parts.
• Manual transmission: Some will surely disagree with me on this one, but they are easier to repair and make it possible to push start vehicles even if the battery is shot or missing. Even some diesels can be push or roll started if you wire open the fuel valve.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of vehicle modifications. Every vehicle is different. As previously stated, there is no one standard followed by manufacturers even for EMP shielding.

Keep in mind that everything you do improves your chances. Start with the easiest and least expensive and work your way through the harder ones.

10 Recommendations for EMP-resistant Transport:

There are a lot of good vehicles to choose from. There are many appealing aspects to these older vehicles. They are inexpensive to buy, inexpensive to work on as long as you provide the labor, simple to understand, inexpensive to insure and inexpensive to register.

You will have to do a little research on specific models to figure out what year the manufacturer started installing EFI (Electronic Fuel Injection) and so forth because I am supposed to be writing an article or two as opposed to a book here, but the topic is certainly worthy of a book.

1. Pre-1985 Toyota Hilux 4×4

These are tough little trucks. If you can find a 4×4 with the solid front axle and a carbureted 22R motor, you have a good starting point.

I have run one of these since the 1980’s and the worse I treat it, the better it runs. They are tough little trucks.

2. Sand Rail or Dune Buggy

The simpler the motor the better, but with larger motors, long wheel travel and skid braking, they will go faster than I want to go, that is for sure. Top a hundred mph off-road in one of these and it will either age you or make you younger. If you like to tinker and weld, they can be a great hobby. Hey, if they are good enough for the SEALs …

They are short on carrying capacity, but can sometimes fit in small planes when disassembled. Depending on where you live, a simple model of any of these may be a must have or you might keep one or more at a retreat or in a Toy Hauler trailer. There are even some diesel models out there.

3. CUCV

CUCV (Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle) on the surplus market. They are basically a military diesel pickup or Blazer.

They started being manufactured in the 1970’s and are not armored, but some models do have some BOV-friendly features like a diesel power plant, blackout switch (to kill all lights), 4 wheel drive, dual 12v/24v voltage, Detroit lockers, dual alternators, Dana axles, brush bars, tow hooks and pintle hitches. And some are topped with shelters or ambulance beds.

You have to research each model though. Not all are 4×4’s and so on.

4. Pre-1980’s American-made Trucks and SUVs

Ford, Chevy, Dodge, these older US-made trucks are very common and are great candidates for a low profile bug out vehicles that double as daily drivers. I do not believe that any other vehicle on this list has the volume of accessories and options available to customize it.

5. Deuce and a Half Variants

There are many variants of these iconic 6×6 vehicles. Some are even bobbed to 4×4’s. They are not so great for keeping a low profile, but they are the go to choice for many preppers looking for a vehicle with plenty of cargo space and can be had starting at under $10K.

There are even some shops that will fix them up for you if you are not particularly mechanically inclined. Plan B Supply can hook you up with a Deuce and a half that is all decked out for the apocalypse for less than $40K, which is a tenth the price of a Knight, UniCat or the like, a whole lot less than an Earth Roamer and way more likely to still run after a HEMP.

6. Older Mercedes Benz Unimog (Diesel with Mechanical Fuel Injection)

Think of these as the European answer to the Deuce and a half. They were first manufactured just after WWII and were sold as the Freightliner Unimog in the US. They are popular as off-road expedition vehicles and even off road endurance events.

They are very reliable and you may find them hauling supplies in jungles, running the Dakar Rally, fighting fires or plowing snow in the North. They come in medium and heavy series.

Large diesel rigs like Unimogs and Deuce and a half’s are sometimes outfitted with marine diesel appliances and solar power and can even be fitted with a wind generator.

7. Sail Boats and Older Vessels With EMP-resistant Diesel Power Plants

If your bugout plan involves blue water, it likely involves a boat or sailboat. Space is limited on boats and must be carefully planned out, but many vessels have miniature versions of all the comforts of home.

There have been many self-reliant adaptations of boats and sailboats. They usually have one or more sails, a diesel power plant and appliances that run off diesel, use solar and sometimes wind as backup power sources.

A heavy duty desalinator and a backup desalinator are critical to make this option work.

8. Canoes, Kayaks, Sailboats, Pack Rafts and Other Small Watercraft

Maybe your bugout plan does not involve a blue water voyage, but it does involve running a stretch of river, lake or crossing a body of water. Man has used boats to solve these types of problems since prehistoric times.

A couple recently rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, but I would not recommend it and I am sure they would not either.

But if your route involves crossing a smaller body of water, a small watercraft may be an important arte of your plan.

9. Draft Horses & Wagon, Horses or Pack Animals

After a severe HEMP, they may make a comeback. As some of our troops were surprised to learn in Afghanistan, there is just no substitute for horses and pack animals in certain terrain.

My county has a mounted search and rescue team that is very effective in certain regions. Mules are an important part of maintaining many of our nation’s wilderness trails to this day and American mountain men would not have been able to travel the Western US trapping without horses and mules.

I have been grateful for them on trips that I have used them and it is plain to see why they figured so prominently into life until the advent of the automobile and how they will again if we lose are large electrical transformers due to EMP or any other reason.

10. Motoped or Bicycle with Trailer

Motoped is on my shopping list. You do not have to be a prepper to appreciate not having to deal with the Department of Motor Vehicles and being able to park in the bike rack.

Motopeds and bicycles are quiet and can be carried on the outside or on top of your rig as backup transport. If the motor is small enough or it doesn’t go faster than a certain speed motopeds are not classified as motorcycles in many states, but this varies by jurisdiction so check your local laws.

Other noteworthy options are:

• Older Toyota Landcruiser
• Pre-1980’s International Scout
• Pre-1980’s Jeep, Cherokee & Cherokee Chief
• Pre- 1980’s Land Rover
• Volkswagen Bug and Bus
• Motor Cycle, ATV, UTV or Snowmobile

In truth, there are many vehicles that would serve the function of bug out vehicle admirably, but in the end, your choice will likely be determined largely by availability, opportunity and economics. Whatever your financial situation may be, automobiles are generally a lousy investment. Invest in function as opposed to form when it comes to rolling stock, including bug out vehicles.

Similar to the prepper who is all guns and no groceries, every so often, I see someone who owns a car that is worth more than their home or someone who has invested a substantial portion of their net worth in a vehicle while living in an apartment. This never fails to cause me to pause to consider it.

Find a vehicle that will get you from point A to point B and make sure you have your food storage and other survival priorities in place.

If you get too far out of balance in any one area of preparedness, your plan is flawed.

Ready Nutrition Readers, as you are probably well aware, the Obama administration would like nothing more than to place the United States under Martial Law.

Once that is accomplished, the country and people would be locked down and kept under control on the pretext of continuing with the government and/or maintaining the national security of the U.S. Let’s take a look at 5 events the administration would be most likely to utilize to reach this end state.

5 Triggering Events Could Put the U.S. Under Martial Law

Note: All of these can occur simultaneously, successively, or individually in any combination at any time: there is no limit to their use or potential to recur!

1. Economic Meltdown

Over the course of this past year, we have seen a tremendous amount of volatility in trade (international) and the U.S.’s domestic manufacturing base.  As our fragile economy is based on 75% of consumer spending, any significant downturn that keeps the shoppers home can lead to disastrous reports.  Lower consumer spending means people do not buy goods and services beyond the absolute essentials, and worse: (in the government’s eyes) they hoard money and withdraw their funds from bank accounts.

The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) can be seen as a key indicator of raw goods and materials transported to manufacturers and consumers via shipping contracts.  As mentioned in previous articles, Hanjinn Container Company, the7th largest container corporation in the world just filed for bankruptcy over the summer. 

Deutsche Bank is on the verge of bankruptcy and large banks such as Bank of America and J.P. Morgan have been plagued by losses and lawsuits alike.  The unemployment rate is truly about 25% and the “Soviet” style statistics quacked from the radio on “record gains” and “economic improvements” are false and intentionally misleading.  A “Bank Holiday” has already happened in places such as Indianapolis, and when the politicians, bankers, and oligarchs decide, they will pull the plug on a Federal Reserve system of fiat currency that is already an ineffective laughingstock of a smirking world that is steadily returning to the gold standard.  When that Bank Holiday is declared, you can be sure the financial systems will collapse and Martial Law will be waiting in the wings.

2. Cyberattack

This one is definitely one of the administration’s favorites.  We’ve been seeing signs of this with the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and DNI (Director of National Intelligence) letters and statements that the Russian government is hacking into the American electoral and election process.  The “targeting” of the DNC (Democratic National Convention) e-mails was assigned to the Russians and officially the Russian government has been accused by the administration of such, and trying to influence the presidential race on Friday, 10/14/16.

We also saw on 9/7/16, two days before the 5^th North Korean nuclear test, the corporation based in California that monitors North Korean missile launches and nuclear testing was hacked into.  A DoS (Denial of Service) was placed into their computer systems, preventing them from uploading satellite feeds and photos that would have enabled them to monitor the North Korean launch.  That corporation is the Project on Crowdsourced Satellite Imagery.  You can read more about this in the article “DoS Attack Crashes Website Monitoring North Korea’s Nuclear Test Site,” by Eric Niiler of Wired.com.

If other governments can crash our internet and servers, do you think it is possible that the U.S. government as directed by the Obama administration can do it on its own? 

When that occurs, cell phones will go down, the computers will go down, the financial markets will be in a turmoil and cease trading, and ATM’s and bank cards will be rendered useless.  Transportation, inventories, shipping, and deliveries will all be thrown into a turmoil and come to a halt.  For an excellent description of this, read Mac Slavo’s article from SHTFplan.com entitled “When the Trucking Stops,” that shows how vulnerable our nation’s supply lines are.  Bottom line: if all of this goes down as a result of a cyberattack, Martial Law will immediately follow.

3. “Unforeseeable/Black Swan” Event

As of last week, Obama just signed an Executive Order (EO), entitled “Executive Order: Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events,” signed 10/13/2016.  Such an EO could cover meteor strikes, Coronal Mass Ejections (CME’s) from the sun, a comet, or any other space anomaly.  Not a big deal, you may think?  It is a big deal, because here’s the bottom line:

Who is to prevent Obama from either causing another nation to launch an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) weapon, or launching one of his own (U.S.-made weapon), taking down the grid and subsequently blaming it on a CME event/solar storm, courtesy of the sun?

Other events would include potentially man-made or generated storms, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, or even volcanic activity.  If one scoffs at such, remember all that it would need is a 1 megaton nuclear “kicker” to set off either Yellowstone Caldera or the San Andreas Fault.  Such natural disasters (initiated by man or genuine) usually result in Martial Law at the state level on a regular basis, much less one that is national in scope…that Obama would jump on to inculcate Martial Law.

4. Nuclear War/EMP Attack

Any day we could be at war with North Korea, Iran, China, or Russia.  The resulting devastation, whether a full-scale or a limited nuclear war would automatically set in motion the wheels for COG (Continuity of Government), and a declaration of Martial Law.

Let me close this portion with my caveat:

World War III will begin with the detonation of an EMP device or weapon over the continental United States, followed by a limited nuclear exchange and then conventional warfare.

5. Viral or Bacterial Pandemic

Either naturally-occurring, or man-made.  The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) just inherited a tremendous amount of “police power” over the summer regarding their newfound ability to quarantine individuals or large groups of people on the suspicion of contamination/communicability regarding viral or bacterial pathogens relating to a potential or real pandemic.

There is an article by Catherine J. Frompovich entitled “ALERT: U.S. CDC Giving Itself Unconstitutional Powers to Round Up and Detain Citizens En masse Anytime, Anywhere and Throw Away the Key,” dated on 9/3/16.  This article details how these police powers were created in the Federal Register as the Proposed Rule “Control of Communicable Diseases” on August 15, 2016 that are now in effect to be found under Federal Register Number: 2016-18103.  Guess what?  That proposed rule is now law, and could easily be utilized to “justify” Martial Law in the U.S. because of a pandemic: naturally-occurring, man-made, or phony.

In addition to all of these juicy tidbits, the deciding factor is what I refer to as the “IHM,” or “Incredible Human Mob.”  Yes, Civil Unrest is a factor; yet it is not a method but a “sign/symptom,” a “side-effect” of what happens when one of the aforementioned 5 methods are employed.  “In the interests of public safety,” or “to protect the public,” or “to maintain law and order” are the phrases trumpeted by our benevolent and friendly government.

As Rahm Emmanuel said, “Never let a crisis go to waste,” the very ones who are to be protected (the public) are the ones who create the conditions for civil unrest.  It’s literally a “problem that takes care of itself,” and here’s the bottom line to cover the Civil Unrest factor:

Using the fake justification “in the interests of the safety of the people,” martial law will be declared to confine, restrict, and control the people…protecting them from…themselves.

Then come the restrictions to travel, the police state in the streets, at the workplace, and the confiscation of firearms.  Then comes the removal of “dissidents and potential troublemakers,” as well as the curfews, restrictions, and limitations in every facet of our society.  Martial Law is an objective of the Obama administration.  The problem is that he (Obama) cannot just arbitrarily declare it.  The declaration requires a prod, such as one of the 5 methods mentioned.  In those circumstances, he then can suspend our rights under the Constitution and bypass the true laws of the U.S.  Such an end state is his desire.  Such an end state would also mean the end…of the United States.

Things are likely to get worse before they get better, potentially a lot worse.

In addition to being one of the most dangerous and unstable times in American history, this moment is also one of the most uncertain when it comes to the future.

The next few weeks are key. There are so many different scenarios for what could happen — some “better,” but almost none of them “good” — that it almost boggles the mind.

However, there are some very encouraging trends amid the darkness.
Despite the rapidly narrowing paths to victory, this writer believes there is still a decent chance that Trump will serve another 4-year term. That is by no means an end to the escalating troubles afflicting America, however.

Regardless of what happens on January 6 and then two weeks after that, some trends for 2021 seem to be a pretty safe bet. It would behoove everyone to be prepared spiritually, mentally, financially, and physically for some very serious turbulence that could make toilet-paper shortages look like nothing by comparison.

POTENTIAL FOR VIOLENCE AND NATIONAL FRACTURING

-There is a real potential for civil war, which the Deep State would absolutely love. Americans killing each other would make the elites’ job of destroying and discrediting America that much easier. It might begin with a false-flag attack, or the coming election turmoil, or other means. Americans must resist the temptation to turn to violence and the forces seeking to manipulate them into it.

-Secession talk is already escalating, and that is almost certain to continue ramping up into 2021, regardless of who is inaugurated on January 20. With the head of the Texas GOP, former Congressman Lt. Col. Allen West, openly floating the idea, and leftists considering it as well, there’s a real chance the efforts to destroy the union could make progress.

-The civil-war within the Republican Party between Big Government establishment RINOs (McConnell, National Review, etc) and grassroots conservatives, Christians, patriots, and America First supporters will intensify. This could culminate in the ultimate destruction of the GOP as a viable party as both factions recognize they have irreconcilable differences.

-The exodus of moderates and normal people disgusted by riots, socialism, and the defund the police idiocy from the Democrat Party will continue as well. Democrats’ frantic efforts replenish their ranks by opening the borders and importing new people will go into high gear. This exodus from the party, if not controlled and dealt with, could eventually lead to a fracturing of the Democratic Party as well — at least if election integrity is ever restored.

If Trump is inaugurated:

If President Trump manages to expose and overturn the obvious election fraud and hang on to the presidency, expect the Left and the Deep State to unleash hell in America. Some of what we might expect to see includes:

-Black Lives Matter and Antifa terrorists will terrorize cities and towns across America, especially those under Democrat leadership. If you live in a Blue City in a Blue State, be very wary. Your local and state officials will NOT protect you, just like they did not protect you (especially black communities) from the terror of BLM and Antifa riots this summer.

-The fake media will portray President Trump as “literally Hitler” who is waging a coup against America, the vote, and the Constitution to hang on to power. Media outlets around the world will parrot that narrative.

-Biden may seek to set up a rival government with its own cabinet in an effort to steal away some of the military and the bureaucracy from Trump. This would undoubtedly receive support from many foreign governments and international organizations.

-It is entirely possible that the United Nations could even get involved under the guise of “keeping the peace” in the United States. If the UN Security Council refused to recognize Trump’s appointees, it is not out of the question that America might even see UN “peacekeeping” troops on U.S. soil.

-Rather than being able to pursue a bold agenda of destroying the Deep State and restoring American greatness, Trump would almost certainly be bogged down — at least for the first few years — with trying to keep the nation together and crush the inevitable rebellion and insurrection that would ensue.

If Biden is inaugurated:

If wannabe “President-elect” Joe Biden is inaugurated, the federal government will suffer from an enormous crisis of legitimacy, as most Americans — including many Democrats — recognize he won by fraud. However, if Biden is sworn in, what has been the relatively slow and steady descent into tyranny will accelerate to unprecedented levels. Here are some other developments we might witness:

-More foreign wars will be launched under various guises, especially to promote “democracy” or bring supposed “humanitarian aid” to nations with governments that the globalist Deep State does not control completely. Regime change in Syria will be back on the table, along with endless war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond.

-Open-borders madness will accelerate, with the federal government and the UN working together to bring millions of “refugees” into the United States during the next four years. Biden will also be sure to make the world aware of the fact that U.S. border security is being handcuffed and neutralized, and that illegals will be hugely rewarded for coming to America.

-Efforts to entrench one-party rule in America will accelerate. This will include amnesty with a path to citizenship for tens of millions of illegal immigrants (and future Democrat voters), schemes to create more Democrat states such as D.C., Puerto Rico, and perhaps some additional states out of California, as well as packing the Supreme Court if Democrats get control of the U.S. Senate or can flip a few RINOs.

-The climate hoax will be resurrected, with Biden opening up the spigots of U.S. taxpayer money to breathe life back into the dead horse that the globalists have been beating for decades. The primary beneficiary will be Communist China as U.S. energy prices skyrocket, businesses become uncompetitive, and productive activity is shifted to China where the mass-murdering regime promised to keep increasing CO2 emissions until at least 2030.

-Globalism will be restored and reinvigorated, as Biden scrambles to rejoin every UN agency and agreement that Trump withdrew from. This includes UNESCO, the Paris Agreement, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Migration Compact, UNRWA, and much more. The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the effort to “integrate” North America with the European Union will be back on the agenda, too.

-Biden has already promised to unleash the power of the federal government against Christians and others of faith. In fact, he said his top legislative priority was the “Equality Act,” which would mandate persecution against all those who refuse to bow to the LGBT golden idol. This would be just the start of the effort to neutralize and destroy the church. On the bright side, persecution always grows and strengthens the church.

-Gun control schemes will be rolled out quickly, both legislative options as well as regulatory schemes through the bureaucracy. While overt confiscation may not come immediately, gun registration will likely be a major step in that direction, beginning with semi-automatic weapons dishonestly described as “assault weapons.” Expect efforts to limit, track, tax, and control ammunition, too.

-The Constitution will continue to be shredded as the Obama-era plot to “fundamentally transform” the United States resumes at an even faster pace than occurred during the Obama administration.

HOW TO PREPARE

Pray. Pray. And then pray some more. Read your Bible. Assuming Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, get involved in a good, Bible-believing church NOW. With faithful church leaders, incredible communities come together in church congregations, and this will be essential to navigate the uncharted waters just up ahead. Don’t try to do it alone.

Get to know your local authorities. That means make a plan, and implement it, to meet and get to know your mayor, sheriff, police chief, city councilman, county commissioner, and so on. Relationships between patriots and Christians and their local leaders will be critical if liberty and individual rights are to be preserved in the years ahead.

Read and acquire books that might be helpful in these times. While that can and should include books on emergency medicine and such, it should also include theology, economics, philosophy, history, art, and so on. If civilization as we have known it crumbles, knowledgeable people with expertise across a huge range of areas will be needed to rebuild and persevere.
Make sure you have adequate supplies to last for a while if necessary. This includes food, water (have a plan a, b and c), heat, security, medicine, and whatever else you and your family might need. Try to at least get a little food going — plant simple but filling crops such as potatoes, maybe get a few chickens, make arrangements with local farmers, stock your pond with lots of fish, and so on.

God says if you don’t take care of your own family, you’re worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8). Make sure to take reasonable precautions to ensure that your family will be OK, even if the dollar crumbles, civil unrest strikes, the power goes out, a cyber-attack knocks out the grid, and other realistic possibilities in these turbulent times.

If you can get out of big cities — especially Democrat-run cities in Democrat-controlled states such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles — do it now. You will be much better off on every front if you can be in a more conservative area with better folks around. Plus, many jobs can now be done remotely.

Obviously — and this should go without saying — remove your children from public school immediately if you still have them there. There is no more dangerous place for your child — especially during these times. Do not let the government have your children under any circumstances.

Try to organize your finances properly. Personally, I prefer assets that cannot be inflated away (stolen) by the banking cartel such as stocks, precious metals, land, ammunition, and more. Obviously do not put all your eggs in one basket. If you can get any assets outside of the United States, that might not be a bad idea right now.

Many doctors I’ve spoken with — including some close to the White House who have been advising the Trump administration — are urging everyone to get a supply of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, and other key products. Do your best to get some if you can. Also make sure to have a decent supply of prescription meds you might need, especially including essentials such as antibiotics.

If the descent into tyranny resumes at a relatively slow speed, many of these “preparations” may not be completely necessary. However, with the dollar being decimated, and all sorts possibilities for problems, it cannot hurt to have a little extra of everything on hand. Canned foods might even end up beating the stock market over the coming years.

Of course, it would be wrong and silly not to point out that God could always intervene. Many millions of Americans have been praying for their nations. With the Supreme Court, Congress, and even the executive failing to do their duty, countless Americans are making an “Appeal To Heaven,” just like our founders did almost 250 years ago when all other remedies were exhausted. Amid all the darkness and evil, God it still working….

Whether you’re sick of throwing out food that’s long past its expiry date, or are working on preparing a food stockpile in case of an emergency, consumables that practically never spoil can be a huge asset to your household. This article lists non-perishable food items that not only have long shelf lives, but if taken care of properly, these foods stand a chance of never going bad within your lifetime.

These ideal survival foods will of course need to be stored the right way in order to retain their practically never-ending shelf life. The absolute best place to keep a food stockpile is in a dark, cool, and dry spot, free of humidity, moisture, direct sunlight, and extreme temperatures. Keeping consumables in an air-tight container, or better yet, vacuum packed, is also very important to increasing shelf life.

Although many non-perishable survival foods may change flavour and/or texture over the years, they remain edible and perfectly safe for consumption over indefinite periods of time. Use your senses to judge whether or not food with long shelf life has expired. If it smells off, has become too soft, or has developed mold, it’s better not to eat the item.

Best Long Shelf-Life Non-Perishable Food Items You Can Buy

1. Staple survival foods that are non-perishable

You’ll need to be really careful about keeping these completely dry and free from moisture, but if you can manage to store these in air-tight containers, they will keep for an incredibly long period of time.

• Rice: white, wild, jasmine, Arborio and basmati (brown rice does not keep forever)
• Hardtack crackers/biscuits
• Dried cranberries

2. Other survival foods that are non-perishable

Although some of these food items will change texture, thickening or hardening over time, they will only change in terms of taste. These survival foods never spoil, and will still remain edible long after their flavour has changed.

• Honey
• Molasses
• Maple syrup
• Dried lentils
• Dried beans
• Dried split peas
• Dry mix Jello
• Gobstoppers

3. Survival foods that if frozen are non-perishable

Though these non-perishable foods last a long time if they’re left out in the open, if they’re frozen, their shelf life extends to indefinite amounts of time.

• Dried pasta
• Noodles
• Dried fruits (such as raisins, dried cranberries, dried cranberries, dried cherries, dried apricots, dried mangoes, dates, dried blueberries, dried plums, banana chips, figs)
• Instant/freeze-dried coffee

4. Base ingredients that are non-perishable

Apparently, these base ingredients can be the perfect survival food. According to some sources, if you simply keep them unused, in an air-tight container and completely free of humidity and moisture, and you’re likely to never have to buy them again.

• Corn starch
• Baking soda
• Corn syrup

5. Seasonings that are non-perishable

Seasonings are also excellent survival foods, as they’re food that lasts forever, and only get weaker in strength of taste over long periods of time. Like with the base ingredients, keep these in an air-tight container, free of moisture and humidity, and they’re likely to never expire.

• Salt
• Sugar
• Pepper
• Spices
• Dried herbs
• Pure flavour extracts (pure vanilla extract, etc.)

6. Condiments that are non-perishable

While these foods will likely change in taste after some time, they remain safe to eat indefinitely. The best way to keep these non-perishable foods is in an airtight container, free of moisture, and in a dark, cool spot, away from sunlight. This type of storage will keep your non-perishable food condiments tasting better for longer.

• Vinegar (white, apple, balsamic, raspberry, rice wine, and red wine vinegar)
• Worcestershire sauce (unopened)

7. Survival drinks that are non-perishable

Non-perishable drinks are another asset you can add to your survival food stockpile. Any alcohol over 10% that does not contain eggs, milk, and other dairy derivatives (ex. not Baileys, Tia Maria, etc.) should typically last forever in a stockpile. Alcohol also has disinfectant and medicinal properties, so keeping it stocked, especially when it never goes bad, is definitely a good idea for any prepper.

• Wine
• Spirits
• Liquors

Here it is my fellow American Patriots. This is IT! The Big One. This is the unholy fulfillment of what I had prophesied for years.

It is the detonator on the improvised explosive anti-constitutional legislative multiple warhead device that Obama regime had been constructing for years, to eventually achieve ambush style lightning effectiveness with a devastating roadside bombing of the 2^nd/Amendment and its free armed citizenry.

Its purpose is to usurp the U.S. Constitutionally guaranteed actionable right of a country founded by the People, for the People, and of the People, and their absolute right to remove an out of control regime by threat of superior citizen’s physical force if necessary.

This is so it will be much easier later on to marginalize the people’s individual and collective power under threat of incarceration until it is severely diminished, in order to then swiftly and permanently abrogate our 2^nd Amendment, and then finally, the Constitution itself.

It was introduced in relative stealth and surreptitious format without any news or fanfare into the bloated bowels of our Legislation less than a week ago on May 16 by Chucky ‘Cheese’ Schumer and his co-conspirator anti-constitutionalists Bloomberg, Gillibrand, Murphy, et al.

It is called Senate Bill 2934 or the “Fix Gun Checks Act of 2016”. Notice the clever deceptive wording. Nothing mentioning ‘background’ check words, that would start sparks flying. They knew they’d get immediate blockage if they called it a “Universal Background Check Act” so there is nothing implying more dreaded gun control.

Just the brain programming that it’s nothing more than a badly needed “fix” to make what we already had better. Just a little something to keep people from slipping through the NICS’s cracks during the waiting period and all? Title I of the S.2934 says: “ensuring that all individuals who should be prohibited from buying a gun are listed in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System”. Sounds innocuous enough…

Until you read S.2934 closely. Further down and likely missed by quick scan readers, Title II of the bill says “requiring a background check FOR EVERY firearm sale”. That means ALL firearms sales. Commercial AND PRIVATE transactions!

This means Chucky Cheese didn’t really want to pursue this until after the election or right before it if it looked like the totalitarian leftist Party was a shoe-in against Trump. Otherwise he might have risked his seat by showing his dirty anti-2/A colors too obviously in the home stretch. But the way this bill was slipped in, with nary an MSM yip or a yap, is not co-incidental by any stretch.

Most followers of either party will usually simply vote a straight ticket. So there’s a good chance if the candidate wins, the Republicans may lose the House and almost certainly the Senate. So they pushed Schumer to make the move to get the bill moving ahead of time, shorting their bet. They want to be poised to strike to the jugular fast as soon as their POTUS candidate is sworn in to mitigate any opposition from gaining momentum when they drop the Statutory Sledge Hammer down.

Paying the Liberty Hit Man

Some of you who at least pay attention somewhat to the world outside of your own special comfort zone, may have recently been shocked at the quickly censored news revelation the other day.

The current government spent over two TRILLION—and that’s not a typo– on bureaucratic administrative mandates, initiatives, orders, rules and procedures last year alone for their staffing and implementation only to establish more control over the population without having to go through Congress for real laws!

Literally thousands of new laws of dubious merit and little pragmatic value were created and put in operation by agency bureaucrats with fully punishable by fines and even jail time if violated, just in the 2nd term of this regime!

According to Law Professor John Baker who says: “…thanks to an overabundance of 4,500 plus federal crimes and 400,000 rules and regulations, it is estimated that the average American actually commits up to three felonies a day, without knowing it!”

And, of course, the Gun Confiscators are falling in full lock step with this anti-Constitutional asset of irresponsible illegal Fiat lawmaking to complete their agenda.

So how many times do I have to say it? As many times as it takes for enough people to get it to make a proactive difference.

Because controlling and disarming the citizenry for eventual Hunger Games style government by keeping permanent punishments restricting gun ownership for crimes even after time, is served and law abiding rehabilitation into society again is accomplished, and it was the greatest oppressive hoax ever perpetrated on the American Free People.

Permanent life-long punishment for even a single isolated criminal mistake in your life is a contraindication of all advanced social evolution. And to this day I still hear intelligent, educated, and concerned persons say frighteningly stupid moronic statements like ”but some people just shouldn’t have guns, right?” WRONG!

That might sound sophomorically acceptable but the reality is something else that almost nobody notices until it’s too late. The statement should be corrected that some people shouldn’t be entertaining the emotional content of doing something very bad in society, and if not contained continue on to commit a crime. And that’s a behavioral issue, not a logistics or supply issue, and has nothing to do with the crime tool implementation.

Unless you are a pathetic moron you by now know that gun control does not work at all. Period. Never did, never will. It NEVER once in all the history of crime prevented a determined criminal from getting one. Because criminals don’t subscribe to any form of government control unless they are physically forced to.

So any gun restriction laws are not only a waste of our valuable time and money, but are of highly suspicious nature in relationship to out of control government untrustworthiness.

Agenda based gun control pseudo-logic additionally opens a Pandora’s Box of potential abuse by authoritarian control in all future existentialism. Which was already in preview with Mayor Bloomberg’s outrageous totalitarian control freak tyranny not too long ago in the Big Apple by attempting a ban on how much soda pop we can drink!

What’s next, banning how many Big Macs we can munch? How much caffeine drugs we can purchase? How about a Copulation Tax if you produce children? Everybody should know by now that they are relentless in their control freakishness? Thinking I’m over the top, are ya?

The Take Down, Choke, and Tap Out of Your Guns

Because if you’re oblivious to this and don’t mind sliding a little down the now well “KY JELLIED” slope, the insidious tertiary mandate in this S.2934 “Fix Things” Bill has an additional little surprise for all you “comfort zoners”.

Buried further down in this testament from hell is in section 103 (a)(36)-(b) in a subordinate clause on “adjudication” of mentally unfit persons who can no longer have firearms, is the definition of who else, besides a judge, can summarily deny your due process rights and determine you unqualified to have a gun under penalty of law, and what they can actually base their criteria on for determining that someone is too “mentally defective” to have a firearm.

Read it, and be very afraid:

{The term ‘adjudicated as a mental defective’ shall–} “include an order by a court, board, commission(?), or ‘other lawful’(??) authority that a person in response to mental incompetency, or marked subnormal intelligence (???), be compelled to receive services—including counseling, medication, or testing, to determine compliance with prescribed medications…”

Wow, I guess that says it all, doesn’t it? Of course the ATF with the form 4473 has been “setting us up” for this a long time now. The fact that one out of every three persons in America are diagnosable with some sort of issue of subnormal emotional content or abnormal psychology doesn’t help. Other countries already require psychological testing to determine if you are qualified to have a gun. This oppressive agenda is salivating at the thought?

Go ahead, pretend it won’t, then be true that when you go to renew your National I.D. Card (2005 Real I.D. Act), face recognition driver’s license, and that a station won’t be set up to test you for your “ability” to legally have a firearm.

Since self-protection is an inalienable right no matter what device or tool or weapon we use, it cannot be violated with a life sentence for isolated incidents of bad social behavior, unless the act or crime itself was so egregious that the perpetrator himself must be permanently removed from society. Which then is automatically exclusive of any other tools/weapons facilitating their violence.

If you exhibit anti-social behavioral problems to the point of actually physically harming others, then YOU should be banned from society for a time deemed appropriate to the public safety solution.

NOT the type of offense laws that Governor Christie just vetoed, which allowed Police to summarily confiscate your firearms if they merely believe that you might be about to commit domestic violence! Even though you didn’t actually commit a crime yet! Shades of “Minority Report” thought control! But why NOT err on the side of caution when it comes to saving human lives?

Well, Virginia…because the danger of a government taking advantage of our misperceptions has been proven time and again throughout history. They are always corrupt and will only get worse, not better. Any perceived notion of gun control efficacy is simply a pipe dream. The danger of the G using this to enslave us far outweighs any specious perception of good.

If you want to really keep guns out of incorrigible lifelong criminals, keep their currently violent out-of- control hands from touching any weapons by keeping sociopaths locked up until there can be little doubt they will not be revolving doored soon into society, way before they are satisfactorily rehabilitated. Not anything else.

And certainly not violating the current law abiding citizens right to protection and privacy, instead.

Get Your Mind Straight Before They Do It for You

There must be a clear understanding concerning this by everybody before things like social criminology reform can ever be achieved.

While it’s true that our broken criminal justice system is almost to a point of being completely dysfunctional, we can’t repair a “criminal prison planet” while at the same time having laws that keep creating permanent outcasts from society, resulting in a bizarre caste system of subjugated subcultures.

And before you “over the top trolls” launch your missiles at me, just do some reality research to check out the real reason for the ’68 Gun Control Act, and the sinister motives for Johnson-and even Nixon to set this permanent felony gun possession fraud in motion along with a war on drugs.

Never were any of these so-called gun control laws intended to provide any form of public safety, because technically that’s impossible. And they know it. They laugh at all of us who swallowed that bullshit hook, line, and sinker. But it’s time get a social law revolution going if the execution of our liberty can be postponed, at least, for four years, in November?

Because we must eventually repeal ALL gun control laws with no exceptions and make it illegal to attempt to make them again. This is the only way to stem the rising red tide of oppression without having a civil war bloodbath that nobody will win, assuming it would not be extremely crushed in its nascent production. Starting with the 1934 NFA, The ’68 GCA, and The Brady Bill. Then repeal all these other super expensive enslavement laws.

Think about it. With TWO freaking trillion dollars a year extra no longer wasted on absolutely useless freedom killing laws, we could build an institutional system that can group all severely mentally ill persons from society and actually give them humane rehabilitating care, without making the rest of us subject to becoming political gun ownership prohibited sub-citizens whenever their agenda requires it.

And we’d really have a much safer public society. So how do we counter attack?

Let’s Have a “Jeffersonian Revolution”?

I know that all the Molon-Labe types are already “up in arms” on any intrusion of our private freedoms, and loudly call for defense of our Constitutional values against determined destruction of our Bill of Rights—at least from the comfort and security of their armchairs.

So why, then, are these totalitarians still out flanking free Americans and taking higher ground? Are they not even experiencing a modicum of trepidation at the idea of waking up the sleeping giant bad dog of a million AR-15 toting, locked and loaded, American minute men and women storming the Capital to tar and feathering the traitors out of town?

But this new stealth universal gun registration bill will be the point of no return if it gets passed. Then all they have to do is tweak the administrative other authority laws to bypass Senate and House legislators as planned, to make all kinds of potential revolutionary dissidents a criminal or other such adjudicated unsuitable person to have firearms who then becomes unauthorized for life to have a gun. And voila, target focused mass disarmament and immediate confiscations!

And all your bravado and trash talking shit won’t mean a thing. There’s even a slick remedy in this bill to take care of all you “hold outs” who say to the Confiscation Officers that their guns were lost or stolen. Because if you don’t have a police report to that effect, guess what? You violated the 48-hour reporting rule! Punishable by arrest.

Thomas Jefferson ran for POTUS against the Federalists. Which if you study the history, was a similar problem to what we have between political parties today. He rallied the common folk and won, and they called it The Jeffersonian Revolution.

We need another one now. Just this morning I heard Donald Trump giving speech in North Dakota and astoundingly…he actually said the word “totalitarian” in describing the excessive overreach of government bureaucracy and their out-of-control laws!

I almost became misty eyed with gratitude, hope, and appreciation. But for someone like me that’s not a viable option in response.

Do…or Die?

Instead I’ve already dedicated time out of every day of my life from now until November to help American revolutionary election forces defeat the nowadays Federalists. It really IS that important.

I hope others immediately join our Jeffersonian Revolution in the war on oppression by coming out to vote and getting others to join us. Everything in our lives as we once knew it…is critically at stake. Our beloved visionary framers would be proud. And your progeny will forever be grateful.

But ONLY five months left to save and preserve American freedoms—or suffer total enslavement. Some say this is the most important election in our lives.

While relaxing and enjoying your holiday these days, please try to at least take a solemn minute to consider how much the high cost of American Freedom is worth to you?

And how so many of our best gave some, and how some…gave all… for our Liberty. Then make your decision. Are you really an American Patriot? Or Not?

We are living in times when people believe that a growing economy and an increase in job opportunities equates to some strange kind of mayhem, destruction, and chaos. 

Also foreign adversaries are just as eager to cause problems no matter what we do to advance ourselves and our allies.

Combined with all the natural disasters that are increasing in rate and severity, prepping and complex survival scenario planning become more important than ever. Having a survival shelter helps you survive, and so is ensuring that others cannot find it.

Keep reading to find out how to keep your survival shelter our of sight!

1. Build the Shelter Underground

One of the easiest ways to make a survival shelter invisible is to build it underground. People that are looking for food, supplies, or other resources will usually look for buildings that may house what they are looking for.

If you build your shelter underground, there are some other advantages when it comes to keeping its location as secret as possible.

Underground shelters are some of the best when it comes to noise dampening, which is especially important if operating machinery underground, or having children living with you in the shelter. Remember, even one stray sound, no matter how faint, can reveal the presence of a shelter and people taking refuge in it. Minimizing this risk with an underground shelter will be an advantage.

Once you start tunneling underground, you can build the shelter a good distance away from the entry point, giving you plenty of room and options for making it harder to locate the shelter from above ground.

For example, you can use decoys as well as other methods to make people think they found your hiding place, even though you are still in a safe place with all of your supplies. Unfortunately, if you have only a small amount of land, creating decoys and distractions can be very difficult for above-ground shelters.

2. Choose Materials for Avoiding Radar and Other Sensors

Not so long ago, metal detectors and other devices were fairly expensive. Also, various kinds of radar devices and thermal heat signature detecting devices were either extremely expensive or unavailable to the public.

But today it isn’t impossible to build or get a hold of this equipment on your own, which means that protecting your shelter from electronic detection means may be more complicated than expected.

One of the most important things to do is make sure that thermal signatures such as bodies, heating systems, and other heat generating devices remain undetected while in operation. Also make sure that metals and other signatures are not easy to pick up in shapes that might interest those looking for supplies or anything else that can be used.

Underground shelters can shield from a lot of different devices, but there are others that can pick up cavities, metal signatures, and many other things that may reveal the location of your shelter or any decoys connected to it.

So if you decide on an underground shelter, make sure that you know how to break up the appearance of key signatures or find other ways to hide them, using paints that block or absorb certain frequencies, or other materials used to make the entire area look like an old debris field.

3. Choose Unusual Shapes

If you are building a shelter from scratch, unusual shapes that fit the landscape will offer the best insofar as invisibility. For example:

• Terrain with a lot of boulders or outcroppings would be a good place to build something that looks like a natural cave. You can use stones from the local area for more of an effect. Just remember to avoid setting the rocks into an unnatural building pattern. It is also important to avoid squares, rectangles, circles, or anything else that doesn’t look like a random pile of rocks.
• In a forest, build your shelter to look tall and narrow. If you are cutting down trees to clear a small area, you can build the house in a tall, cylinder shape, and then put bark around the outside of the shelter for a more realistic effect. Put vines along the outside of the structure or other plants that will grow and cover what should look like a dead tree trunk. This may be a fairly small shelter, and you can also build more than one to hide caches of good and supplies.
• Underground shelters on grasslands will be best if they are as even as possible with the ground. Unless you enter and exit the shelter too much near the cavity, it should remain well hidden once the grass grows over it. Ground penetrating radars can still be a problem, so try building the shelter in odd shapes that look like an underground cave or something else that would be of no interest to people looking for you or your stockpile.
• If you live near a waterfall or other area with running water, explore the possibility of building a shelter behind the waterfall, and research on underground mining and tunneling carried out by Cornish miners. When it comes to building an invisible shelter, very few people will even think to look under a pond or some other area deep below the surface of the running water.

4. Make the Shelter Amenable to Different Coverings

In any environment, brush, dust, and many other things will build up around items where people don’t clean up or move things around. When it comes to keeping your shelter invisible, making it look like no one is there is very important.

If you are using a conventional wood or brick structure for your shelter, make the walls, roof, and other surfaces amenable to different coverings, using vines, dust, and even garbage that may blow into your yard from time to time.

If you think of shelter coverings as being like a ghillie suit for buildings and shelters, then it may give you some good ideas about how best to hide your shelter from prying eyes. You want the shelter to blend into the landscape so that people don’t see it or recognize it for what it is.

Even breaking up the impression of straight lines in a shadow can make the difference. No matter how you look at it, coverings that break up light and shadows are bound to be as important as they are when you need to hide your physical presence in various settings.

5. Pros and Cons of Making the Shelter Look Abandoned and Unliveable

Making your shelter look derelict on the outside can have advantages and disadvantages.

On the positive side, people looking for expensive things to steal, food, weapons, or other valuables will more than likely look for buildings that are in better repair. If your home looks rich and expensive, then there must also be something worth stealing inside, so better looking buildings and their occupants will be looted and invaded first during a riot.

On the other side, in the later stages of a major crisis, most rioters and others will be homeless and looking for any place to stay. So homeless and desperate people will look for shelters that are the most run down to inhabit.

If they think the building is abandoned, the homeless will crawl into just about anything and build a fire or do something else to make the shelter more comfortable. Under these circumstances, homeless people passing through your area even now may decide to try and inhabit your survival shelter.

6. Disguise it To Look Like Something Else

Unless those searching for you have advanced radar or other detection systems, appearances can be your best weapon for making a shelter invisible. Aside from terrain specific shapes, there are some other ways to disguise the shelter to look like something else:

• Never allow the outer walls of the structure to look like man-made formations. This means the shelter should have an irregular appearance with crooked outcroppings or plenty of areas that look like they will fall down at any moment.
• Large enough cement sculptures or ones made from other materials can be used for very small external panic rooms or other shelters. They can also make a good place to hide trap doors to underground shelters. You can even use plastic bottles filled with sand, or many other materials that will simply look like a garden ornament or something else that isn’t related to a survival shelter. Even if you only build something that is 10’ x 10’, it may be enough to hide a trap door or a cache that you can live on for several days.
• Building a shelter that looks like something else may be as simple as getting an old car frame from the junk yard. You can take this exterior and make it look like an ornate flower planter, or an unusual sculpture. While this “artwork” may be in plain view, people may not realize that the entire inside has been hollowed out and that there is enough space for you to sleep, cook, and even store away some supplies underground.
• When it comes to disguising your shelter, creativity must also be balanced by effectiveness of the design. Depending on the neighborhood and the area, you may want something that will blend in and look normal. In other situations, you may want something novel that makes people think of anything but a shelter.

7. Use Smaller Modules Across the Property

When looters and thieves are looking for viable targets, they focus mainly on larger buildings that promise enough material to make it worth breaking in. This is just one of many reasons why you should always break up your stockpile into smaller groups of materials even if you aren’t interested in making your shelter invisible.

In some cases, if thieves find small items “hidden”, they may leave the rest of your stockpile alone.

When building a survival shelter, do not put all your focus on fitting everything into one location, but have two or three different shelters scattered throughout your property.

For example, you might make one small underground bunker, one above ground hidden in brush and brambles, and one in some other location. Even if people spot one, it is not likely they will look for a second and third shelter.

8. Avoid Telltale Signs Like Utility Pipes and Meters

Even if you have lived through a catastrophic hurricane, it can still be hard to believe that a bigger crisis will occur, or that extreme prepping is a matter of paranoia.

There may also be a level of prepping that you won’t go simply because you think the odds of a social collapse that spans decades is a matter of “if” as opposed to “when”. It also means that you may overlook critical things when it comes to concealing your survival shelter.

You might think that running water in the shelter, electricity, gas, and phone service are very important. While digging a well and placing the pipes underground would be suitable for concealment purposes, you might choose to simply hook up some pipes from your home and extend them into the secondary shelter. If anyone comes to your home, those pipes will be easy to spot and can lead other people right to your hiding place.

Burying those pipes underground may work better, but remember that the water meter outside your house will continue to run. All anyone has to do is see that meter moving to know that someone is living close by.

Power lines with meters attached and other utility wires can also make it easy to track the location of your shelter. Rather than take these chances, find a way to live without power as much as possible, and use communication means that don’t rely on cable or internet access.

Foxhole radios, bullroarers, and many other devices can be used for communications in a time of need. In fact, it would be better to have these systems on hand if more complicated equipment is wiped out as it was in Puerto Rico.

9. Avoid Obvious Pathways To or From the Shelter

As with power lines, obvious pathways worn into the grass or the surrounding area can alert others to the location of your shelter. Even trampling sand or soil can leave signs of packing that will make other people curious enough to investigate. If you are still adding provisions to the shelter, or need to access it on a routine basis, there are some things you can do to avoid the signs of pathways to and from the shelter:

• use vines or ivies across paths instead of grass. The vines can be pushed out of the way easily enough with your foot, and then back into place after you are done working in the shelter.
• For dirt or sand paths, carry a rake with you. Use the rake to loosen up the compaction created by your feet. Do not forget to use the back of the rake to smooth out the lines made by the rake.
• You can also set up stepping stones all over the yard. When you need to get to and from the shelter, step only on the stones. Just make sure that the stones are set randomly enough that a trail isn’t easily visible.

10. Avoid the Shelter When Others are Watching

It’s obvious that you should never enter or exit your shelter when other people are watching. No matter whether you created a liveable “lawn ornament” using an old car frame or some other object, disappearing into it or exiting it will alert anyone watching that something is hidden in the structure.

If your shelter is hidden in the woods, ensure you haven’t been followed to the site. If you can do so without alerting others to your hideaway, install trail cameras around the area. This will help you find out if other people followed you, or if they are nosing around. Conceal the cameras as high off the ground as possible so that they escape detection.

When it comes to concealing your entrance and exit times, don’t rely on night time to cover your activities. Given the availability of night vision gear and cameras, you never really know what kind of surveillance is going on all around you. Visit the shelter in daylight hours, or at times when electronic surveillance devices may have the hardest time picking up on your presence. Experiment with night vision enabled cameras to see when they convert from color to black and white as well as lighting patterns that they may not easily work well in.

Concealing your survival shelter isn’t something you may be able to do as an afterthought. Instead, if you are making plans to build a new shelter, figure out how to build in features that will make it hard to spot by humans, tracking animals, and various kinds of surveillance and detection devices.

Stay up to date on all emerging technologies or tracking methods that might be used to find your survival shelter. Once you know what you are up against, you have a better chance to revise your shelter and ensure that it will stay invisible and safe!

In June 2017, an exploding firecracker sparked panic as 30,000 fans watched a soccer match in Turin, Italy. The crush that followed killed three people and injured 1,672.

More than 700 people died in 2015 during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Officials said panic ensued when two large groups of pilgrims arrived at the same street from different directions and created a bottleneck.

Witnesses said it was a case of too many people pushing and shoving on a small suspension bridge that caused a deadly situation during the Khmer Water Festival celebrations in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 2010. The death toll was 347.

In Germany in 2010, people on their way to the Love Parade, a popular music festival, packed together into an underground passage. More than 651 were injured, and 21 people died in the overcrowded tunnel. 

In the U.S., it was a rush for first-come, first-serve seats at a concert by the British rock band The Who that turned deadly in Cincinnati in 1979. Eleven people lost their lives.

What do all these events have in common? They were crowded, peaceful events that turned deadly. These human stampedes demonstrate that when people panic, deadly chaos can ensue.

Human stampedes can happen when people perceive a threat – like the explosive sound in Turin – and run away from that threat. And they can occur when people anticipate something of value – like a good seat at a concert – and run toward that valuable thing. Deadly human crushes have happened at nightclubs, sporting events, and shopping malls all over the world.

Crowd management experts explain that human stampedes typically begin when people reach a door, wall, or other barrier and slow down or stop. People behind them keep moving, assuming that space will open. When that space doesn’t open up, they begin pushing forward.

Clearly, the best way to survive a human stampede is to avoid crowds altogether. However, that tactic may not always be possible, and we cannot always predict when a situation will turn ugly.

Just as with many situations in life, surviving a human stampede can come down to mental preparation. Here are nine ways to survive a human stampede.

1. Make An Exit Strategy

Whether you are in a crowded building or outside in a packed courtyard, take the time to scan for exits. Keep in mind that the best way out may not be the way you came in. Look for alternative ways out that might be used by fewer people.

2. Follow Your Gut

If you feel uncomfortable in a crowd, pay attention to that instinct and either move to a safer location, or get out of there entirely. This decision can be difficult, particularly if you have traveled a long way or spent a lot of money on tickets, but it might save your life.

3. Stay Calm

Experts say that more people die from lack of oxygen (compressive asphyxiation) in a human stampede than from being trampled. Don’t waste your energy and oxygen by yelling and pushing. Instead, stay focused and resist following a herd mentality.

4. Stay Upright With Your Hands Up

Hold your hands and arms to your chest like a boxer in a match. This position gives you momentum, and it helps protects your vulnerable torso. Don’t bend down to pick up a dropped item — it’s not worth it.

5. Keep Moving

If a crowd of people is surging, it is unlikely that you can withstand their strength. Try to keep moving at the same pace as the crowd.

The exception to this rule is if the group is moving toward a barrier, such as a wall, fence, or any other solid object that you can’t climb up or over. Avoid moving towards one of these chokepoints if at all possible.

6. Move Sideways

Crowd safety expert Paul Wertheimer recommends a technique he calls “the accordion method” for getting out of a dangerous crowd surge. After the crowd pushes forward, there is a brief lull. Wertheimer says to use that pause as your chance to move diagonally between people.

Take a few steps sideways. Wait for the next break. Then take a few more steps until you get to the outer edge of the crowd, where you are less likely to get hurt.

7. Help Each Other

Help someone up by extending your hand, and point with your hands and arms to different possible ways out. A landmark study on crowd behavior led by psychologist John Drury of the University of Sussex found that a key to avoiding tragedy is to help one another in a stampede. According to the study, when people stop to help each other, it decreases everyone’s sense of panic.

8. Seek Shelter

If the present danger is the stampede itself (not a fire or another emergency), look for ways to escape the crowd. If you are indoors, it might be a side stairway or a closet. Don’t forget to look up for a ledge or, if you are outside, it could make sense to climb up a tree or get on top of a vehicle to protect yourself.

9. Guard Your Head

If you should fall, try to get up as soon as possible. If you cannot get up, Wertheimer recommends that you curl up on your side and protect your head with your arms.

One of the interesting things about crowds of people is that their movements follow patterns. Many crowd control experts talk about human groups moving predictably in ebbs and flow like waves. Smart crowd management teams plan for these waves with plenty of entrances and exits, well-marked directions, public address systems, and strict crowd control measures at bottleneck points.

If you find yourself at a crowded event — whether it is a concert, a Black Friday sale, or a peaceful protest — that is not taking these measures into account, you could be in danger. Keep your wits about you and get out of there safely while you still can.