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The electrical grid is commonly understood to be the most fragile part of our infrastructure. In pretty much any disaster situation, you can count on the grid going down and our electrical power being out. When that happens there are many things we’ll have to do without, including our normal means of cooking. Even people who cook on gas stoves are likely to be without the ability to cook, although gas should still be flowing through the pipes for a few days. Without the use of our modern kitchen range, let alone the microwave oven, we’ll all need to find...

The idea of the lone wolf survivalist really isn't all that good a one. Oh sure, if you're a true woodsman, who is an expert in all aspects of survival, you might be able to survive on your own; but so what? How are you going to keep society going on your own? For that matter, how are you going to keep the human race going on your own? Most of us don't have every skill needed to survive in every situation on our own. Oh, we might have a pretty good collection of survival skills; but unless we study...

I was watching a few episodes of the program “Fat Guys in the Woods,” just to see what it was like. The program is a bit humorous, with a survival instructor taking three overweight city boys out in the wild and teaching them basic survival skills for a week. The first night, they’ve got to come up with shelter and fire, before calling it quits for the night. The host and survival instructor plays up on that a bit, always stacking the deck against the guys, especially in fire making. So, what’s so special about shelter that it becomes one...

In his book “One Second After,” author William R. Forstchen painted a well thought out picture of what life would be like in a post-EMP world. Faced with the sudden loss of power and everything electronic they depend on, the population of a small mountain town has to figure out how to survive. While many die, those that survive adapt, learning new skills and fending off a number of problems, including a large-scale armed attack. Like most Americans, these people were totally unprepared for the crisis that faced them. They hadn’t educated themselves or their families on what to do in a survival...

Survival requires a lot of things and the longer a period of time we are in survival mode, the more things we realize that we need. But ultimately, most of the things we find that we need boil down to providing the most basic survival needs of warm shelter, clean water, and nutritious food. Of these three, coming up with enough clean water to survive is often our biggest problem. Of course, if you live beside a major river, that’s probably not going to be an issue for you. But few of us actually live beside a river that flows year-round; and...