Degrees of preparedness- Level 2

In Degrees of Preparedness- Level 1 we talked about what types of survival supplies you would need to keep stocked to make it for 7 days without electricity or water.


In this article we will cover the supplies and gear you need to have for a Level 2 prep, which will outfit you for a three month period of time.  This length of preparation will get you through most natural disasters until your region or community can get back on it's feet.  It is also long enough to get you through the recovery of a terrorist attack, an extended bank holiday if a federal state of emergency is called or let you wait out a quarantine if there is a pandemic.

As always, water is first and foremost in importance for your preps.  The requirements don't change from our last scenario either- budget one gallon per person, per day for drinking, and another five gallons of non-potable water per person, per day for bathing, washing clothes and flushing toilets.


In a perfect world, you will be able to store all of this water in your home or garage.  For most of us with limited space, this ain't gonna happen.  A family of four would require 360 gallons of drinking water along with another 1800 gallons of non-potable water.  Wow.  Who has the space to store all of that?


The best advice that I could give would be to store as much water as you possibly can, stock provisions for purifying water, and develop a plan for sourcing water locally that you can purify at home.  


In addition to boiling and chemical disinfecting methods, you should have a quality water filtration system in your arsenal.

Berkley Water Filters

Katadyn water filter

Between the water filter system you have, liquid chlorine bleach and boiling, you will have no problems purifying water as long as you have a source for it.  

If you do not know of a stream or creek that is close to your home, check out a topographic map of your area to find one.  If you still cannot locate a stream or creek, a pond or lake would be your last choice.  Always try to get your drinking water from a moving body of water such as a stream or creek instead of a stagnate body like a pond or lake.  The water quality is usually much better.  

Also, try to avoid getting your drinking water from major rivers.  They usually have runoff from commercial and industrial businesses draining into them that can contain pollutants that you will not be able to remove with your purification methods at home.

The quality of your water supply will have a large bearing on your overall health, so take the time to ensure that you game plan for drinking water is well thought out.

For your food supply, you will obviously want to increase the quantities of items that you keep on hand.  There are food storage calculators on the internet like this one that will assist you in determining quantities.  Plan on keeping plenty of the following long shelf life items:

• non-condensed soups
• canned beef stew
• canned chili
• canned ravioli
• Spam
• Vienna sausages
• Canned chicken
• Tuna fish
• canned veggies
• dried beans
• white rice
• honey
• granola bars
• oatmeal
• cream of wheat
• pancake mix
• maple syrup
• breakfast cereals
• condensed milk (non-sweetened)
• powdered milk
• saltine and Ritz crackers
• peanut butter
• jam or jelly
• pasta noodles
• spaghetti sauce
• Ramen noodles
• coffee

All of these items listed will last well over 90 days on your shelf, but they should be incorporated into your regular diet so that you can rotate your stock to maintain freshness.  You will also need to increase your supplies of vegetable oil, spices, and other miscellaneous cooking staples that don't require refrigeration.

In addition to these foods, you may want to keep a case of MRE's around as well.  This will feed a family of four for one day without doing any "cooking".  Your first day of a crisis will be chaos, and until you can get everything you need collected and set up, cooking meals will only delay you from getting things done.  MRE's may not be anyone's idea of a gourmet meal, but they will fill you up, provide necessary calories and can be eaten at room temperature without any preparation.

MRE's

You will, of course, need to be able to cook your food and boil water.  We talked about using a propane grille in the Level 1 article, and this is still a good idea for Level 2.  It may be best to have a 100 pound tank of propane to run your grille if you are going to be cooking on it multiple times a day for three months.

Gas grille with side burner

The propane fired generator that you bought for Level 1 will run your microwave, electric skillet and coffee maker allowing you to cook all this food you stocked up on.

6000 watt propane powered generator

Since you will not have an unlimited supply of propane to burn, I suggest first using up all the food you have that needs to be frozen or refrigerated, and then quit running your refrigerator to save on propane.  While you still have food in it, you should only be running your refrigerator for a couple hours in the morning and a couple hours in the evening to maintain the temperature.  The more you can conserve propane, the better off you will be. 

Try to stockpile propane in 100 pound containers- as many as you can store.  Propane has a virtually unlimited shelf life, and with a dolly you can move the 100 pound bottles anywhere that you need to run the generator or grille.

Since you won't know if your 3 month crisis will come in the summer or winter, you need to have some sort of plan for staying warm if it occurs during the cooler months.  A good wood stove is probably your best bet for several reasons.  Firewood is cheap, a quality wood stove is far more efficient than a fireplace and it is possible to boil water or do some light cooking on top of a wood stove.  

I would plan on having a minimum of two cords of seasoned firewood on hand to feed your stove, and more would only be better.

A kerosene heater can do quite a bit of heating as well as boiling water, but it can be a challenge to keep enough kerosene on hand to run it.  If you decided to pursue this option, consider getting a 275 gallon fuel oil tank to store your kerosene in.  Apply a commercial fuel treatment to your kerosene to prevent algae growth.

23,000 BTU kerosene heater

At this point we have addressed the needs of water, food, heat and electricity.  Shelter is our last major need for basic survival.  Since you already live in a house, you probably figure that you are covered there.  Maybe, but maybe not.

Even though you are trying to weather your way through a survival crisis, doing your best to keep your family alive, your bank is still going to want a mortgage payment from you every month.  Since there is nothing quite as cold as a banker's heart, they won't give a hoot in hell if you are able to work through a crisis situation or not.  The only thing they will be concerned with is getting their payment on time, whether you are currently getting a paycheck or not.

The only way to prevent the loss of your home and the destruction of your credit rating after the crisis is over is to keep three months' worth of paychecks in the bank at all times.  This is the reason why preppers always preach about getting your financial house in order.  Get your credit cards paid off, and cut the damn things up.  Instead of blowing money on a flat screen TV, save some cash to tide you through the tough times. There is no easy way to do this but it needs to be done just the same.


Depending on where you live and what type of crisis you are involved in will determine the firearm needs for your family.  If you are involved in a crunch that is lasting for 3 months or more, you may need to do some subsistence hunting to maintain the protein level in your diet.  Check out this previous post to learn more about what survival weapons and how much ammunition you should own.

You will need additional candles, oil lamps and flashlight batteries to augment your original seven day supply, and it is also a good idea to have a battery powered AM/FM radio to monitor the news.  


Keeping a 90 day supply of your prescription medications on hand at all times is problematic; even the mail order drug plans will only send you three months' worth in most cases.  If the survival event strikes in between your reorder dates, you will run out and may not be able to get more.  There is not much to be done about this other than perhaps begin a rationing program with your meds when the SHTF.  Ask a pharmacist or your doctor about doing this to see if this is a feasible alternative for the medications you are taking.


Inevitably, you will overlook some items when you are stockpiling supplies.  During a three month crisis there will be limited availability and hours of operation for retail stores, but they will be open at least some of the time.  Plan on having folding cash on hand to do business with these merchants, as we talked about for a Level 1 prep.  Another good method for getting what you need is by using the barter system.

A Level 2 prep is not designed to get you through a long term/permanent survival scenario, but it will keep your family from living under extreme hardships for most common survival situations.  These preps that we have talked about should be the goal of most survivalists.  Level 1 is fine if that is all you have room for, but plan on doing more if you can.


In a future post, we will discuss how to plan for the big daddy, TEOTWAWKI.

LWM out...............