In Thursday’s column we began to roll around some of the issues that would likely accompany a Big Shut-In – which would be a justifiable public policy response to Ebola getting loose in the USA.
There was one error in the report pointed out by reader Elizabeth:
I visited the CDC site but couldn’t locate the ‘cleaning and sanitizing with bleach’ section. Could you please post the link? You referenced 2 links today but the actual links are missing. Could you post both please?
My pal Gaye at www.backdoorsurvival.com adds this:
Regular unscented only. Plus, keep in mind that for disinfecting and sanitation purposes, bleach has a 1 year shelf life. Not some thing to mess with. – using old bleach that is.
She’s got an article coming up on the powder (used for chlorinating swimming pools) which is the same stuff but with a better shelf life, so watch her site for that…
It’s early (and the coffee is still spinning up) but here’s the one that matters most:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/bleach.asp
Second error: Death count is 700 not 7000…stick around for a while, though. It was raining zeros and we’ve had a drought of decimal points this week.
Another reader (Eli) sent along a video link which calls into question the pabulum which is being inserted in virtually all mainstream media accounts that Ebola can not be spread by airborne means.
After you watch this video (and so some reading) I’m sure you’ll be loading up on jugs of bleach…
A reader in Israel sent us this:
Between wars I try to read your column.
Your Ebola prepping may be just in time: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/american-ebola-virus-patient-u-s-article-1.1887776
If you need a bunker, you can have mine for free. Zeus is also welcome.
Keep safe.
That could be a tall order. The headline on that last link announces that “Emory University Hospital in Georgia is expected to receive Ebola virus patient as American aid workers are evacuated from Liberia…”
Opening borders is turning into a whole manipulation festival at many levels, isn’t it? I can hear the unstated ads now: “Open borders, it’s not just for Hondurans anymore…”
Say, anyone besides me wonder if Ebola is covered by Obamacare? Just wondering…
All of which gets us back to looking over our personal prepping plans around the ranch and wondering how the checklist is holding up. You may not be able to trust the Nanny State, but you should be able to trust yourself. (Unless my friend Jas is right and America really has been bred down to the land of dopes and fools, and I grudgingly admit he’s got some evidence to that effect…)
Our “Seven Major Systems” of life approach is useful and you’re welcome to borrow it for assessing your own readiness for the possibility that a Great Shut-In could be coming down the road…Just tell all your friends to be sure and visit UrbanSurvival.com 30-times a day so I can become fabulously wealthy as the world ends, lol…
Food
Starting yesterday, you look at your food and water situation: Sure the water from the public source SHOULD stay on, but do you have several weeks of water in containers just in case? 1.5 gallons of drinking water per day per person minimum.
And do you have 90-days of food for you and your loved ones on hand? Any way to cook all those noodles and such? Around here we’ve got acres of trees dropping deadfall all year, but if you have a rocket stove in the city where are you going to get fuel? And just how many days worth of meals can you get from a BBQ?
Frozen foods are nice, but what’s the plan when the power goes off and the stuff begins to spoil?
These are terrible questions to address if you come upon them out of the blue, but Ebola has (quite court5eously) given us oodles of lead-time.
Shelter
You consider your home: Do you have enough money set aside to make a month of two of home payments if your job disappears or is put on hold due to a great national emergency, such as martial law due to Ebola?
Not that your landlord would be so crazy as to try and kick you out of your home during a Shut-In, but remember, people are not going to be rational or sane during such an event.
Communications
First and foremost, do you have a NOAA Weather Radio? And do you have a 6-month store of batteries to put in it so you can update “official” news a couple of times a day?
Do you have a plan to communicate with your key people without cell phones and the internet?
Do you have an “Internet-free” plan?
Do you have a shortwave radio (like the Tecsun PL-660 Portable AM/FM/LW/Air Shortwave World Band Radio with Single Side Band, Black so you can pick up shortwave and distant AM stations at night?
Environment
Toilet paper, toilet paper, toilet paper!!!
Should public water supplies fail, do you have alternate means of dealing with human waste? (Crap and all that TP, TP, TP…)
And do you have a deep collection of kitchen garbage bags that could be used just in case? Burn barrel and 5-gallons of diesel?
And do you have a further six-months worth of toilet paper on hand and being cycled through? Remember, Ebola causes the runs, and as obvious as this is, if someone in your household came down with it, you’d be going through (likely) one roll of toilet paper per day or more if you get Ebola…
(A jar or two of Vaseline might be useful, too, based on some personal experience with “the runs” – a touch of that on a couple of clean squares will ease the terrible burning and…but you knew that, of course. But do you have any on hand is the point?)
Also in this category is medicines to have on hand. Not the least of which is aspirin, ice, and cool showers to keep down fever.
Although taking an antibiotic for Ebola won’t do a damn bit of good direction, reader David reminds us that secondary inflection is another matter…
“gm George,
Have used these for years for pets & us: Fish Antibiotics
http://www.thomaslabs.com/category/64-fish-antibiotics.aspx”
Not recommended by me, of course, but just in case that 100-gallon aquarium shows us ion the mail, I already have a couple of bottoms of FishMox just in case. You never know when someone’s gong to mail you a big aquarium, right?
Transportation
If you need to go skulking around during martial law or Big Shut-In type event, do you have good night vision vision gear? We keep ours always at the ready along with the high-speed lead dispensers because if we ever did get into a serious national disease lockdown, 911 calls might go unanswered.
Energy
Batteries, batteries, batteries.
And say, did I mention to be sure have have 120-days of your whole life depending on batteries on hand at all times?
Finance…
I’ve saved this one for last because it would make a fine topic for a full-length exposé (or even a handbook) on “How to cover up the Greatest Bubble of All Time and maintain plausible deniability for the HFMICs.”
How so?
Well, remember that in the wake of the Internet bubble we were looking into the Great Financial Abyss and by the summer of 2001 it was becoming obvious that a further meltdown into the Second Great Depression was at hand.
And what happened? Blam! The Twin Towers and the 9-1-1 event kicked off the greatest economic stimulus in history. The mother ship: It made the total surveillance of the population acceptable, it caused hundreds of thousands of jobs to spring up overnight. It caused us to go to war (wrong country of course, but that was the plan, you see…) And it is still with us today, giving employment and keeping us all loaded up with taxes and being busy at things like the war industries and the security state.
This is right out of the playbook “Report from Iron Mountain: On the accessibility and desirability of peace…” Less than $10-bucks: Report from Iron Mountain
Sure, it’s a spoof, but wait…if it’s a spoof, how come all the pieces fit so well? We’re at the national health care part now, but why not roll with the global population reducer in here?
The Washington Cartel simply assures us this is not an airborne disease, brings people here instead of treating them nearer the source, and then it breaks out.
“Ooops, our bad…but in order to stop the virus we now need a National Time Out. During which the markets will be closed, your debts will not accrue interest, and in the aftermath, we’ll have even more public employees hired to make sure no one did you wrong during the National Time Out…
So spend this time with your families and loved ones, but don’t leave the house or we’ll round you up and take you to central facilities and you know what that means, right?”
It’s a terrible thing to be so suspect of government, but there’s been little reason to be anything but…
And speaking of Ben, a reader by that name offers us this insight:
George, I was just reading your morning post, the ebola section…..signs and symptoms. I’ve noticed that every time a politician, ovomit, reid, pelosi, feinstein, et al, comes on the idiot box, I get chills fever, severe headache and vision problems( I can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel)I frequently vomit and often times have diarrhea…Do you think it’s possible for me to have contracted ebola via the ether net, from one or more of these friggin morons? After all, there is no question they are sick, and they have sprayed tons of shit over We the People……
The punchline (we need them to keep our spirits up and comedians coming to this site) is that Ben lives up in the Athol of Idaho area.
Not to be confused with the other Athols.
Driven to Drink
With the odds of diarrhea becoming the next global mega sport, some fine points on “rolling your own” hydration products if you don’t have the dough to buy the prepackaged stuff. Reader (and desert rat) Mike’s up first:
Hello George,
Just to clarify regarding Gatorade and hydration emergencies: You will be drinking a great deal of it, and most flavors contain Brominated Vegetable Oil(BVO) which can interfere with iodine uptake and metabolism. BVO is not present in the two citrus flavors – Orange and Lemon/Lime. I use these two exclusively since I often work outside in a semi-arid environment. I’ve used the BVO flavors in the past and find that they don’t feel right, and I’ve had effects(slowing metabolism) that might be due to this. FDA has BVO as a semi-acceptable ingredient that should be phased out as quickly as practical. It’s only purpose is to homogenize the color/flavor of the drink. The citrus ones don’t need this.
When I realized what was happening, I stopped drinking the Glacial Freeze blue Gatorade and it made a difference. I do like the flavor, but I don’t want the BVO. I used up my old supplies by interspersing a can of blue with the citrus flavors until it was gone. I’d suggest that in a hydration emergency you’d be best using only the citrus flavors. Sometimes I actually add a spoonful of salt to the drink for extreme dehydration if I need to. This can be important when humidity is measured in single digits and temperature is in triple digits.
Enjoy – YMMV, of course,
And how is this one from reader Paul?
The following recipe was given to me by a nutritionist that works with the medical profession. I used it when I contracted the Noro Virus and it worked well.
Pedialyte Substitute:
4 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Morton Lite salt
6 tsp sugar
If you want flavor add Koolaid, tea or Crystal Lite.
Drink copious amounts.
Another recipe (because Ebola is not likely to respect borders any more than the Washington Cartel or the drug lords to our south) we have this from a Canadian reader:
Hi George
I just thought you might want to mention this to your readers:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-Your-Own-Damn-Sports-Drink/
Thanks for all the useful information you always have.
Who would have thought? A reader on the banks of the Fraser River of British Columbia in that metropolis formerly known as the Cayoosh Flat… who’dah though?
Well, so much for Mr. Cheerful for another week. Peoplenomics tomorrow will be holding a basic course in electronics….in another “shocking” report…
Write when you break-even — which here lately has kept my workload down considerably.
George george@ure.net