The world we live in these days is not as certain as it has been in the recent past. Every day we see countries pushing their limits just a bit further. North Korea is getting its missiles further and further out year after year. Russia entered into a war, and no one stopped them due to the threat of nuclear weapons. The pandemic itself showed us just how bad things could get with our weak globalized supply chains. Even Myanmar had a coup, and the world seemed to think it was perfectly normal.
Those are just recent situations that continue to escalate. We haven’t even touched upon how powerful China continues to get and impose its economic dominance in several locations. Whether it’s the complete takeover of Hong Kong or the fact that it’s currently eyeing Taiwan these days, this is concerning. While Hong Kong was already agreed upon, to initiate any type of hostilities towards a country like Taiwan would ignite the brittle branches and cause a full-scale global situation.
So what happens when it gets so bad that it’s time to get into survival mode? The best way to begin is by being prepared. Taking cues from the old Boy Scouts motto makes perfect sense these days, and training yourself with survival skills wouldn’t do anything more than prepare you for what may come. Yet you can be an expert on survival in so many different ways, but without a home base of operations where you can recoup and rest and, more importantly, protect your loved ones during these times, those survival skills will only get you so far.
Understanding the rule of threes
Survivalism will only get you so far because of the rule of threes. When you enter into this mode, you’ll quickly realize that you’re spending a lot of effort to get to that level of preparedness you should have already had in the beginning.
The rules are as follows and follow different amounts of time frames.
• The first rule is that you can survive for 3 minutes without breathable air, basically oxygen, or in extremely frigid waters.
• In a harsh environment, except for icy water, you’ll only be able to survive for 3 hours without any type of shelter.
• Let’s say you’re breathing air and have a shelter; you’ll only be able to survive at most for 3 days without water.
• With everything above, you still need sustenance and that means you can only survive for 3 weeks without food.
This is where you will need to focus your initial efforts, and that’s why understanding these rules and focusing on getting prepared should be your main priority.
How to prepare ahead of time
First of all, you don’t need to go with a separate purpose-built fallout shelter. Those can be quite expensive, and it’s not something that everyone can easily invest in. Yet there are ways to repurpose existing areas of your home to prepare for this worst-case scenario, such as rebuilding your root cellar or basement. Besides basic reinforcement needs, you want to make sure to finish these locations to make them habitable for the long term if necessary.
What are some of the items that you want to bring with you into your bunker? First of all, you want to be able to build a durable and insulated shelter. Then it’s all about having access to clean water, whether it’s a filtration system or bottled water.
Then you’re looking at food supplies that can be stored for the long term. That means dried/ canned goods of different varieties. There are some ancillary items you want to consider as well, such as first aid knowledge and supplies. When you get into survivalism, even the smallest cut, left untreated and with a shortage of medical supplies or antibiotics, can become dire sooner than you believe. However, these are the basic necessities to keep you going in the early days of a situation and help buy you the necessary time for things to calm down.
Don’t forget about your air
Remember, all of this is moot if you remember the rule of threes if you cannot breathe. There’s nothing worse than going through all this preparation to protect you and your loved ones with all that careful planning, yet there’s no access to clean, breathable air. Just as water is life, so is the air you breathe. At least with water, you’ll have three days to attempt to figure something out. However, when it comes to Nuclear, Biological or Chemical compounds in the air you’ll only have 3 minutes, which is the equivalent of not having enough time.
The greatest investment you can set up for your makeshift fallout centre is to get yourself a proper NBC air filtration system such as the Castellex Air550 It’s a professional-grade filtration system used for anything from nuclear bunkers to panic rooms and bomb shelters. That means it’s going to be good enough for you and your family in whatever setup you have to bunker down in. It comes with multiple filters, such as an F7-rated pre-filter, carbon filter and H14 class HEPA filter. It’s built to block out most of known warfare gases or other particles you and your family shouldn’t be breathing.
In the end
Understand that your safety is of the utmost importance and that taking the time and the minimal investment to prepare your home for this terrible possibility will only help to improve your longevity and survival options.
