Planning ahead for circumstances beyond your control, can lessen the challenges that accompany natural disasters.

You are sitting in your living room with your family enjoying a good movie, popcorn and pizza, all of a sudden without warning the house begins to shake.  You all know what to do because these earthquakes are pretty common, and so you all take your assigned positions: under the table or standing in the doorways till it stops.

Pretty routine as usual, all is well in a matter of minutes and you return to your movie and family time and this scene ends happily. But what if? What if the earthquake didn’t stop and it became very aggressive? Scene two: same family, movie and yummies, same assigned positions, but only this time things are falling down and the shaking is just not stopping. You begin to realize this one’s different and before you know it, you are in a major earthquake and there is a lot of damage to your community from it. This is where planning ahead for circumstances beyond your control, can lessen the challenges that accompany natural disasters.

 Having emergency preparedness supplies on hand such as food, water and meds are a wonderful assurance in times like this because it frees you up to deal with other challenges that may be present under these circumstances. And the fact is that there will certainly be other issues to deal with in times like this such as broken water lines, gas leaks, and structural damage to name a few. So considering now, what may be helpful later is pretty important don’t you think?

Dehydrated Food Storage-Just Add Water

We have found that the easiest and most effective way of storing food for emergency preparedness is dehydrated food packs. They come in all sizes with different meal selections to choose from. The greatest part about dehydrated food is that all you need to do to prepare it is just add water!

Dried food is lightweight and it easily carried or moved around. This is a huge benefit since carrying food storage in and out of your house, up and down the stairs, or in and out of a cellar can be very physically demanding. Heavy food storage takes up too many energy, and all energy should be conserved in an emergency situation.

Being able to just add water to your food to prepare it is an amazing feature as well since you may not have much time to cook and eat in a disaster. Children can learn how to prepare this food as well because it is so easy.

Dehydrated food storage is the best option available for complete, nutritional and tasty emergency meals. Make sure you make dehydrated food storage packs part of your emergency preparedness.

Looking for Good Survival Books?

Getting a good survival guidebook can be difficult. The key is to look for a survival guidebook that is written by someone who has training AND experience. An author with these two traits will be able to explain survival skills better because it is from his or her OWN experience.

I would recommend the SAS Survival Handbook by John Wiseman for an inexpensive yet useful and diverse guidebook. The book only costs around $13, which isn't too expensive at all considering some survival books cost over $50. The author has 26 years of experience in the Special Air Service (SAS).

This book covers almost all survival skills from how to survive in different climates, locations and situations. The great thing about these survival skills is that government pays big bucks to train its soldiers in these survival techniques. It's pretty impressive that you can learn them too for only $13!

One reader gave a 5 star review on Amazon.com stating, "The moment I pulled this book out of the box, I couldn't put it down. Every page has valuable information- this book is all killer, no filler, with the foundation being one's will to live instead of a bunch of pricey survival items. I still can't believe all the information it has at the bargain amazon price! It shows you how to build an igloo and other forms of shelter, deliver a baby, skin your next meal- EVERYTHING. Needless to say, there's a reason why the previous editions of this book has sold over a million copies."

If you want a good survival book and are looking to learn survival skills from an expert, I would give this book a try. The value is well worth the price.

How Do I Purify Water for Emergency Survival?

There are many ways to purify water for emergency survival. In the video below, you will learn about what to do and what not to do when purifying water for drinking.

Whatever method you choose for purifying water for drinking, be sure you are well-trained in that method and know how to properly and thoroughly purify water to avoid sicknesses such as giardia and diarrhea.

10 Functions of an Emergency Survival Knife

Having the right emergency survival supplies will increase your chances of emergency survival. When planning for emergency survival, choose tools with multiple functions to conserve space and increase efficiency.

One such survival tool is an emergency survival knife, which come with multi-function blades and a hollow handle to store survival items. Below is a list of 10 contents and uses these knives can have-

1. Cutting and slicing

2. Saw

3. Bottle-opener

4. Signal mirror

5. Protection

6. Matches

7. Fish hooks and leads

8. Nylon line for fishing

9. Liquid-filled compass

10. Wire ring saw

Emergency survival knives are inexpensive and an invaluable tool to keep in an emergency survival kit. If you do not have an emergency survival kit, this survival knife is a great mini-survival kit that can be grabbed in a hurry if you find yourself in an emergency.

How Much Survival Food Do I Need for Emergencies?

Although the human body can go for about a week without food, the odds of survival are much greater if you don’t have to go without food for even one day. Emergency survival planning should include acquiring enough survival food to sustain you in survival situations.

Food is essential to all bodily functions. Going without food causes problems such as muscle weakness, headaches, disorientation, irritability, inability to focus, lowered immune system, exhaustion and low morale. Having enough emergency survival food is an essential part of emergency survival because it allows you to stay focused, healthy and gives you the energy you need to survive.

A good rule of thumb for emergency food is that on average a person can last 1 week without food. Of course, this is a very general estimate and the actual time you can go without food will depend on many individual factors such as your initial state of health and your surroundings (exposure to elements, if you are injured, etc).

Calorie calculators can be found online that will properly calculate your daily calorie requirement. When calculating your daily calorie requirement, keep in mind that you will probably use more calories in a survival situation than usual. This is due to panic, adrenaline, and extra energy used to survive.

Keep enough survival food in your emergency survival kit to last for at least few days as you cannot predict how long you will need it. This is not difficult as emergency survival food today comes with high-calories but in small-sizes. Choose survival food that is light so as to not weigh down your survival pack and make you use more calories.

You should acquire survival food that will last for years without spoiling. This is important because you may go a few years without using the survival food, and it can easily be forgotten.

Review your survival food and your emergency survival kit often to make sure that no food has spoiled and replenish any food that has been spoiled or used. Keep your emergency survival food supply as complete and edible as possible so you are always ready for emergencies.

A good survival food option is high-calorie food bars. These bars are very high in calories for their size and are very lightweight. Also, they are very affordable, usually just a few dollars. High-calorie food bars are also a good choice for survival preparedness food because they do not need to be cooked or heated to eat. They are an easy, fast and affordable choice for emergency survival food.

Emergency Survival at School

Children spend most of their day in school and are just as likely to experience an emergency at school as at home. Emergency survival planning is essential in the classroom to be sure that students are safe in case of an emergency.

A good place to start in school emergency survival is to get a school emergency plan. This plan should include how to recognize an emergency situation, how to contact emergency response personnel, all possible exits, orderly exiting process, meeting location outside and head-count procedure after exiting. The emergency plan should also include emergency contacts for each student.

When the emergency plan is completed, be sure that all students and staff understand the plan. They should understand the complete process contained in the school emergency plan. The plan should also be reviewed often with each class so that the information is fresh and any new students receive the training immediately.

Remember that students (children) become frightened easily and are not as capable of taking care of themselves as adults in a survival situation. Teachers and other education staff should know their role in the school emergency plan as they are the leaders in an emergency.

Another key part of emergency survival planning for the classroom is a classroom emergency survival kit. These kits can be purchased online and can support up to 30 to 50 people. Such school emergency survival kits include emergency food and water, survival tools, hygiene and sanitation supplies and first aid. Each classroom should have enough emergency kits to take care of the capacity of the room, not the current number of students in the class.

Review the school survival kits often to make sure nothing has spoiled or been broken. Replace any survival supplies that are no longer useable. Keep the survival kits in a safe location out of the reach or access of the students.