Tomorrow is never certain.  We never know when there might be a dissonance which can disrupt the comfortable nature we are used to on a daily basis. There are many different emergency events which some people prepare for but, unfortunately, most of us tend to ignore. At some point in our lives, we will have to deal with some form of natural calamity, and that is exactly why we put together this post.  In the following article, we’ll highlight some of our favorite survival skills for natural calamities for you to learn from.

Survival Skills

1. Making Shelter

You should consider your situation before planning or building any survival structure. Your shelter must be able to provide protection from excessive wind, sun, rain, snow or any kind of weather. A shelter is mostly for comfort and protection. It should protect you against animals, weather or from insects. Likewise, it must be relatively comfortable since you will have to sleep in it.

A shelter may have many different forms:

• Natural shelters include caves or fallen thick-foliaged trees
• Intermediate shelters include a ditch dug next to a tree log and covered with leafs, debris shelter, or snow caves
• Completely man-made structures which may include houses, tents or tarps

2. Gathering & Filtering Water

Human beings are able to survive for an average of 3 to 4 days without water intake. Water is highly needed in hotter temperatures. The need of water also may increase with exercise. A normal person may lose between 2 and 4 liters of water in a day under the normal condition – more in extreme weather conditions. It is suggested that you consume between 3 and 6 liters of water per day to stave off dehydration.

In survival situations where running water is not available, you need to have an adequate water supply or a way to consistently produce clean water. Without clean water, you won’t survive a prolonged calamity and therefore, you need a source that will not only provide clean water but also easily accessible every time without going long distance. Other sources of water may include; having secrete water reserves, rainwater harvesting, or storing the large quantity of clean water.  There are numerous ways to generate clean water from questionable sources filtering, purifying and boiling.

3. Creating Fire

Fire have been recognized to significantly increase an ability to survive from both the mental and physical states. It can help you warm your body, boil water, cook food, or dry your clothes. In addition, fire can also provide a psychological support by creating a sense of the safety and security.

Lighting fire without matches or lighters is a common subject in survival books and courses. You should, therefore, practice the fire making tactics before venturing to wilderness. Making the fire in adverse conditions have been made easier by introductions of fire equipment such as fire piston and solar spark lighters.

4. Food Storage

You might be surprised seeing food being low on a survival skills list. We can survive without food for much longer compared with other basic needs. According to the rule of three, a typical person can survive for up to three weeks without food.  That being said, surviving and being somewhat comfortable can be two very different things.

Having food stores in place prior to a calamity is the best way to ensure you don’t go hungry during a natural disaster.  In the off chance you’ve run out of everything, you can resort to the following means of food acquisition:

• Hunting
• Foraging
• Trading

Please make sure you can properly identify edible plants if you intend to forage.

5. Improve Your Outdoor Skills

The more you understand the nature, the better you will be able to survive. For instance, to effectively locate wild animals you will need highly tuned wildlife tracking skills.The best way to acquire basic natural knowledge is to read about plants and animals in your area and then get outside and tune your knowledge. This approach will allow you identify means of survival in the outdoors in good times or bad.

6. Improve Your Attitude

Attitude is very important in survival skills. It can even determine whether you are going to make it out of a situation alive. Your attitude will help you plan for your situation and, by doing so, you will keep your body and mind active. A positive attitude is also contagious.  If you are in a group of folks who are in dire straits, a positive attitude may help bring people together and allow them to get to safety.

7. Build Your Relationships

Solid relationships with other community members is an essential aspect of survival and readiness. One individual can’t do as much as two can do. If you involved your friend or a neighbor about it, they might agree and create a readiness plan for the entire community. Solid relationships will add an extra reliability which will help you prepared for anything.

8. Communication Is King

Communication is one of the most critical survival skills to keep up to date with.  Ensure that you have backup forms of communication such as radios, radio phones, auxiliary phone chargers or satellite phones. All these are a flexible and viable form of communication.

Moreover, have a communication plan and make sure that you practice in calm times to make sure that your plan works when things go sideways.

9. Have An Escape Plan

Having a plan to escape from different situations is key in a survival situation.  Your plans should start with your central location – do you have an escape plan for your house if it’s on fire – and build outwards.  Where do you go from work if there’s a disaster? Where do your kids go if they are at school? Where do you go if your primary escape route is blocked? Do you have a tertiary escape route?

10. First Aid Knowledge

Don’t let its ranking fool you – first aid knowledge is one of the most critical of the survival skills that you should develop. Build up your first aid kits both in your homes and in your vehicles and, above all else, build up your knowledge to treat everything from simple to severe situations. You can enroll in basic first aid classes and other natural survival tactics at some of the institutions such as Red Cross. Additionally, you can read more books that provide first aid information. Once you’ve developed your basic first aid skills, you may want to develop a knowledge of medicinal herbs and remedies.

Conclusion

Natural calamities come at the most unanticipated times.  Only developing proper survival skills will allow you to make it through these situations as unscathed as possible.

What do you think of these tens tips? Let us know in the comments below.

Prepping can be a lot of things – a means of survival, a way to keep your family safe or simply a fun hobby with a beneficial outcome.  Sometimes preppers, especially those of use with kids, can get so consumed with the big picture that we forget the simple fact that prepping with kids means we’re more apt to experience the little things than the big things.  I was reminded of these little things over the last few weeks.

Life Is Getting Fun

My wife and I have been blessed with twin daughters.  At four years old, they are just now getting to the point where I can start taking them into the outdoors for more than ten minutes.  I’m trying to use this time both to instill a love for the outdoors and teach them different survival and outdoors skills.  This process is, admittedly, a slow one but it’s one all of us are starting to truly enjoy – it’s very hard to tell who is more excited to go hiking every weekend!

Part of the process is letting kids be kids.  Typically we walk into the woods for twenty minutes or so and find a nice place to have a break, complete with a little snack.  I use this part of our trip to reinforce the ‘pack in, pack out’ mentality and we make it a point to pick up any extra trash we see.

After our snack, we continue on some more.  In most cases we look for a cool place to stop and let the girls run around.  In order to keep these trips fun (and keep the girls coming back), it’s important to allow them to have some kiddo time where they can run around and use their imagination.  They love ‘exploring’ on their own with the only rule being they have to stay within eye sight of me.  We’ve also started to build geocaching into our trips – it’s both exciting for the girls to find ‘buried treasure’ but it’s also teaching them navigation and situational awareness skills.

I was reminded  during one of these play sessions that prepping with kids means being prepared for the little things.

Kids Will Be Kids

On one of our hikes, we were exploring the coast of Long Island Sound.  Because it was low tide, there were a ton of tidal pools around and the girls were begging to explore on their own.  I, of course, encouraged it.  They took this opportunity to take their shoes off, run through the tidal pools, try to skip rocks and run onto the little sandbar (which they called their island).  They had a blast running around and I had an equally fun time watching them.  Side note – watching four-year olds try to skip rocks may be one of the funniest and cutest things I’ve ever seen!

When it was time to go, I was wiping the sand off their feet before putting their shoes on when one of my rugrats started howling.  Taking a closer look, I realized she had cut her foot open during her adventures.  I can only assume it was on a jagged sea shell as I was pretty diligent about looking for broken glass, metal or anything else that may have been present from unsavory previous visitors.

A situation like this one would have been a bit more chaotic in the past.  But, since I had my EDC Bag and my Altoids EDC Kit (more on that in a future article), I was easily able to take care of it.  I flushed out the cut with some fresh water, applied some anti-bacterial cream and a band-aid.  Her shoes held the band-aid in place perfectly and she was able to walk without comfort.  We were good to go.

Prepping With Kids Pays Off In Multiple Ways

Being able to treat my little lady paid major dividends for me.  First and foremost, I was able to take care of my kiddo – that’s a primary concern for any parent.  But, more importantly, it gave her confidence that being prepared is a good thing and it gave me a way to talk about being prepared with her – “It’s a pretty good idea that daddy carries this stuff with him, huh?”  On a personal note, it helped me due to the fact that we were about a quarter to half mile from the car and I would have had to carry her back if I hadn’t been able to bandage her up.  She’s not heavy, but the terrain was sandy with large rocks, not the easiest place to walk when you’re carrying a child.

Personal reasons aside, being able to take care of my daughter and have a chance to promote being prepared were well worth lugging in my ‘man purse‘ with some key pieces of kit.  At the end of the day, she was happy that Daddy took care of her boo-boo, I was happy that I was able to take care of her and we were able to bond over something that could produce a lifetime of good habits – both exploring the outdoors and being prepared while you do it.

What are your experiences prepping with kids?  We would love to hear your stories in the comments or on our Facebook page!