This is part two in a series of posts about how to get started Prepping the Organized way (find part one here)
So we have our ranked list of disasters we are concerned about. Now we need to start to drill into each of these and see what they mean to us. This can be a bit time consuming, which is another reason it’s good to start with a stacked rank list. We’re going to build what I call an impact list. This is simply a collection of services and resources and how that event will affect them and for how long. I group these into several broad categories to start:
- Food
- For the purposes of this exercise I’m looking at three main aspects to food. What is my water supply? What is my food supply? How is my ability to prepare food affected?
- Shelter
- Again just for the purposes of this exercise I’m looking at a few main areas. What is the status of the structure of my home? Can I maintain a comfortable environment? What is my electrical supply? What is my gas/oil supply?
- Tactical
- Did the event cause changes to my defensive situation? How can I communicate outside my home? Are there health concerns (nuclear, biological, and chemical)?
- Getting Around
- What transportation options are affected? Do I have the needed fuel supplies?
- Personal
- Does this event affect my financial situation? Does this affect my personal items?
Trust me, we will get into a LOT more detail in coming articles, but these are the basic questions to get started. Let’s go with a concrete example though. We’ll start off easy and pick “local electric blackout”.
Disaster
Category
Impact Area
Effects
Local Electric Blackout
Food
Water Supply
City Water not effected
Electric Well Pump shuts down
Food Supply
Refrigerator and Freezer shut down – OK if blackout short
Food Preparation
Electric Stove, Oven and Microwave non-functional
Shelter
Building Structure
No impact
Comfort
AC offline, Heat OK -- OK if blackout short
Electric
No devices functioning, non-surge protected devices may be damaged
Oil/Gas Supply
No impact
Tactical
Defense
Exterior lighting off
Communication
POTS line ok, Cell on battery only, Radios on battery only
Health Concerns
No impact
Getting Around
Public Transit
Some services may be out
Car
Traffic delays may be increased to signals being out
Fuel
Some gas stations may not be able to sell
Personal
Finances
No impact
Personal items
Non-surge protected items may be damaged
As you can see this could take a while to pull together for every scenario. This is why I suggested you rank your scenarios, that way you could just build this list out for the most important ones.
The main idea here is so you can see which “impacts” are common to your top scenarios. This helps us prioritize which skills and gear we need first. Technically speaking you could probably skip this step if you really wanted too, but I wanted to present a comprehensive (and organized) way to start building out your lists.
In my next post we’ll start getting into the details. We’ll be starting with Water Supply.
