Hurricane season is quickly approaching here on the East Coast.  Unfortunately, for many East Coasters, these storms are common weather phenomenons that impact the lives of millions each year. Depending on where you live, some of the destruction caused by them may result in local flooding.  The impacts of such an event can be widespread, and one of the major consequences of flooding can be poor sanitation.

Natural Disaster Preparedness

Let’s spend a few minutes talking about natural disaster preparedness before we get neck deep in SHTF sanitation.

Ideally, in a situation like a hurricane, you have the basics on hand.  That would be water, food and communication.  Water and food are obvious for survival situations.  Communication can be a tricky one.  The idea is to know what’s going on around you.  It may mean having something as simple as a pocket radio to something more complex like a HAM radio.

Cleanliness Is Key

Beyond the food, clean drinking water and communication, you should also be ready to keep yourself clean and sanitary.

It’s important, especially if you have children or elderly people, to make sure that you don’t create or spread disease around your living area.

There are three key items you’ll want to clean regularly and consider:

1. Yourself and other people in your group.
2. Your eating utensils and dishes.
3. Your living quarters and sewage.

Keeping these three categories clean and sanitary will be key to long-term survival and well-being.

Post SHTF Sanitation Supplies

You should already have soap and basic cleaning supplies in the stockpile of supplies you have, but do you have enough?

I could make a claim about how much soap to store, but the best way to track that is through tracking your own usage. For me and my family, a single bar of soap per person should last a month or more when you consider using the soap with conservation in mind. Check on how much soap you use on a normal basis, and then assume that you can use a considerable amount less if you have to.

A good all-around soap can work wonders in a variety of applications, and there’s no reason you can’t use one type of soap to wash all the essentials. Just be careful about the scent since your probably don’t want to clean your dishes with soap that has a musty scent.

By adding some extra water, along with plenty of soap and vinegar to your stock of supplies, you will be able to have a safe and sanitary area.

Washing Yourself

While the accepted rule of thumb is to keep one gallon of water per person per day in storage, this does not include enough water for real sanitation.

It is plenty for cooking, eating, and drinking, but not for washing.

keeping yourself clean is of the utmost importance if you are in a hotter climate or are engaged in a lot of physical activities. Depending on your living conditions and level of activity, you may want to wash yourself every day.  However, it is possible only to wash every other day.  That is a call you can make yourself.

Despite the necessity of keeping clean, this is one of the areas when you can save some water.  By wetting a washrag and then lathering it up instead of taking a shower or bath you can cut down on the water needed drastically.

Washing the three essential areas is not only a key to sanitation, but also to a healthy existence.  The three essentials are the genitals, rear end and face.  This probably goes without saying, but make sure you have separate washrags for your face.

Washing is even more important if you have a group with you. Be sure to have children keep themselves clean and check the elderly regularly as well.  If anyone is incapacitated, move them when possible to prevent bed sores and ensure that they get the washing and attention needed to keep them as healthy and clean as possible.

Utensils and Dishes

While it may make a lot of sense to use disposable or burnable dishes and utensils, some things you are just going to have to wash. Chances are you’ll have a few pots and pans and other such things around if you’re hunkered down and able to stay put for a while.

A good way to cut down on the amount of dishes you need to wash is to cook in cast iron.  Cast iron pans will last virtually forever and require almost no water to wash and sanitize.

However, if your pot and pan selections do require cleaning, there are a couple of ways to keep them clean without using too much water.  Add dish soap to a spray bottle of water and you can limit the amount of soap and water needed.  The spray action of the bottle will provide the suds and water needed to wash the pans.

You can make you supplies of soap and water last a lot longer by only spritzing the pans a few times to get them moist and allow the soap to do its thing.

Another great, inexpensive option is to keep a jug of bleach around. You can keep a spray bottle of diluted bleach around for sanitizing surfaces. Be sure to mix to the right strength since the concentration of the bleach can vary by brand.

Living Quarters

There’s more to being sanitary than just washing your dishes and keeping yourself clean.  You can’t live in filth and still consider yourself clean, no matter how much you wash.

Besides the normal dirtiness of living in a post SHTF world, you are responsible for cleaning your filth as well.  Keeping your living quarters clean is a necessary step for any long-term survival. Try to keep your food crumbs picked up so they don’t attract pests. Many illnesses can be traced back to rodents and other pests getting into the food or living area.

Another thing to consider is dealing with sewage…

No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet.
– Sylvia Mathews Burwell

One of the best ways to keep sanitary is to use existing plumbing (i.e. the toilet) or an outhouse.  Don’t forget that you can use nonpotable water for manually flushing the toilet.

If the grid is down or you have limited access to sanitary facilities, then your best option may be an outhouse.

If you end up using an outhouse, there are a few considerations to keep in mind.

1. Location: An outhouse needs to be at least one hundred and fifty feet away from any source of drinking water.
2. Hole Depth: Studies have found that users of outhouses are more likely to get tapeworms.  This is because most outhouses are not dug deep enough.  A tapeworm can move through the soil almost five feet, so a shallow outhouse will allow the worms and possibly other pests to reach the surface and will raise the chances of exposure.
3. Toilet Paper: Depending on the scenarios that you are planning for makes a pretty big difference in the amount of toilet paper that you will need to keep in stock. We usually keep a healthy amount of toilet paper around anyway since we buy in bulk from Costco.

Summary of SHTF Sanitation

Keeping yourself and your group clean and healthy must be one your top priorities.  What’s the point of surviving a disaster only to be struck down by a preventable disease?  By adding plenty of soap and some extra water to your stockpile you can be clean and healthy.

If you think about the following, then you and your family will be in good shape:

1. Store a little extra water, soap, and some wash rags.
2. Have a plan for cleaning your plates, utensils, or other kitchen implements.
3. Store some toilet paper.

I want to let you in on a dirty little secret about prepping: it ain’t cheap!

Once you get through your “Oh, crap!” moment, you’re going to do the same thing I did. You’ll realize that there’s a whole lot of action you need to take and a fair amount of things you need to acquire. A lot of these actions and acquisitions require money – money you might not have right now. So, what are you going to do to get started?

Go into debt?

Buy it on credit cards?

WRONG!

You’re going to do the first thing I did – sit down and make a plan to get out of debt. If you do nothing else described in this series, you’ll benefit immensely just by getting out of debt and creating financial independence for your family. Not being handcuffed by the credit card companies and banks will make you breath easier and sleep sounder.

Why My Finances?

Your first thought might be “why should I get my checkbook in shape before I stock up on beans, bullets or band-aids?” The answer is simple: without a solid financial backing, you can’t buy anything. Putting yourself into debt just to ‘be prepared’ is detrimental to your cause. You can have all the food store, medical supplies and firearms you can handle, but you’ll be up a creek without a paddle if spend all your money on preps and can’t afford to pay your mortgage or rent.

Where To Start

The first thing I recommend doing to start getting your finances in order is nothing.

Sound counter-intuitive? It is.

You’re not going to change your spending habits, you’re not going to change your income, you’re not going to change your monthly bills. You’re simply going to track your incomes and expenses for the next three months. Tracking this information lets you find out where your money is coming from and where it’s going.

How To Track Your Finances

There are a ton of different ways to track your money.

Some people like the old school method of pencil and paper. And that process works just fine. Write down dates and transactions – incomes and outcomes. At the end of the month, add them up.

Other people, myself included, prefer a slightly more technologically advanced approach. There are many software applications (both freeware and paid) that allow you to track your expenses. We have been using the freeware software Microsoft Money Plus. Yes, it’s Microsoft, but it does a great job of providing a clean interface that allow us to easily track my money. In addition, it allows us to run monthly reports. Plus it’s free – that’s a bonus for this endeavor! You can find it, along with a handful of other free finance tracking software suites, on this site.

Batten Down the Hatches

Now you need to take an honest look at the results of your financial tracking.I’m going to warn you right now – this next step isn’t going to be comfortable.

We spent three months tracking my financial transactions – every paycheck, Dunkin Donut stop and fill up at the gas station. After three months, we was able to generate three monthly reports and get a pretty good snapshot of how we spend our money.

At this point, we could see where we needed to tighten the belt a little. One of our big findings was that we were eating out – ALOT! Those $5 breakfasts, lunch runs and “we’re too tired to cook” dinners were catching up to us. We had a couple of other areas we were unknowingly spending a lot of money.

The next step is to tighten up in your overspending areas. This step will be uncomfortable. Not going out to eat as much as we used to sucked. For instance, I personally felt like I was losing a social aspect of work.  Likewise, we felt we worked hard during the week and deserved to go out to a nice dinner on the weekends. But you know what else we found out? We found out we were able to save some money in just a few months. After tightening the belt a bit for a few months, we were starting to see our income trump our expenses for the month (you’re still tracking your finances, right?).

We made a list of our debts – credit cards, loans, mortgages, etc. And we also stumbled upon Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball. Spend some time reading up about this approach on your own, but the premise is this:

Pay off the smallest debt first by adding additional monthly payments while still paying your regular monthly payments to all your bills. Then you take the money you were paying monthly on the first bill and tack it onto the payments for the next smallest bill. Once that loan is paid off, you take the money you were paying on the first two loans and attack the third smallest loan with that extra monthly money. And so on, and so on. Essentially you’re paying the same amount every month, but your debt starts to disappear.

Download the Debt Snowball spreadsheet from Vertex42.com

We’re in the middle of this process – approaching some of our bigger loans – and can honestly say it works. Dave Ramsey has a pretty good approach to financial security – give him a chance.

Financial Independence – Now What?

So you’ve paid off everything with exception of maybe your mortgage. What do you do now? First – give yourself a giant slap on the back. You’ve done something that most folks don’t think is possible. You’ve used what you have to get out of debt. You can breath easy. You can sleep sound at night. Next – make yourself a promise. Promise yourself that this will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN! Make smart decisions, don’t finance your wants and live debt free. Now you can prep with an open mind.

You’re probably asking – do I need to take care of my finances before I do any prepping?

The answer is YES…and NO.

First, remember that building up your financial security is a big part of prepping, so don’t overlook it. Second, realize that you can do small things on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to build up your preps. We’ll get into different ideas when we talk about water and food storage. Also, if you can find ways to augment your income, you can justify making a ‘prepping fund’ where you can save money and put it towards prepping. This approach doesn’t strictly follow Dave Ramsay’s advice, but I have found that allowing yourself an occasional ‘reward’ does help you keep on the straight. At least for me, sometimes I need something more than seeing the monthly statements disintegrating before my eyes. Just be sure that your occasional treats don’t overtake your debt reduction process.

I hope you enjoyed this first article on Prepping 101. I am happy to answer any questions in the comments section here or on Facebook. If you don’t want to make your question public, you can always email me at dan AT suburbansteader.com. Keep an eye out for our next Prepping 101 article on identifying what you’re doing that’s working against self-sufficiency.

photo credit: psyberartist via photopin cc

Up until about a year ago, I was walking around dumb and happy. Life was pretty good – I had a good job, a nice house and a wonderful family. I could afford to live quite comfortably.

Then Hurricane Sandy hit Long Island on October 29, 2012.

We’re Not Ready

I was one of the fortunate ones – our house was nowhere near the flood zones, we had minimal structural damage (just some siding that blew off), no major landscaping damage (no trees down on our property) but we were without power for eleven days.

While we were quite fortunate compared to most, this event opened my eyes. I have a young family – at the time, my twins were three years old. My wife and I had no lights, no heat and no hot water. In addition, our phone was not working and cell coverage was limited at best. We were on our own. We didn’t have any kind of energy back-up, so all the food in my refrigerator and freezer went bad within three days. Fuel shortages were common resulting in both a limited ability to drive to stores and limited ability for delivery trucks to bring supplies (including food) to Long Island. On top of all that, the police force was swamped with keeping the lines at gas stations in check and keeping dangerous areas (such as those with live wires down) safe.

We quickly realized we were on our own.

Why am I telling you all of this? The reason is simple – I quickly found that I wasn’t prepared to take care of my family. It wasn’t a zombie apocalypse or a complete government collapse that made me realize I needed to prep. It was a relatively simple weather situation that took away all the comfortable amenities that society provides. I realized that I had a lot to do in order to provide a comfortable alternative to my family in case something like this happened again.

The “Oh Crap! Moment

At this point, I did what I normally do – started consuming way too much information on stuff I didn’t know. I started reading about prepping and survivalism which, up to that point, was something I viewed as crazies were preparing for zombies and complete government collapse. As I consumed more, I ran into a few websites and forums that made sense of all this information. Jack at The Survival Podcast and the good folks over at the WhenSHTF.com forums made me realize that you don’t need to be absolutely nuts to think about having some things set aside for real world scenarios. But, as I read more I got wide-eyed.

Holy Crap! I’m way behind the curve on all this!

I started freaking out about all the stuff I needed to do – stored water, stored food, protection, power backup, financial security, gardening, etc. How do I do all this stuff? Where’s the money going to come from? How do I know what to start with? What if…What if..What if…

I was overwhelmed.

Then I Took A Breath

After I became all consumed with this information, I took a step back and took a deep breath. The world’s not ending. Life as we know it is not over. The sun is still rising in the east and setting in the west. Life is still OK.

At that point, I realized that I had a lot to do, but I needed a plan. To make this plan, I needed to identify all the different “buckets” that I needed to address. Once I had calmed down, I came up with the following “buckets” I needed to address:

• What’s Not Working (against self-sufficiency)
• Food
• Water
• Shelter
• Power
• Security/Safety
• Health and Sanitation
• Money

Prepping 101 – How To Get Going

Each one of these buckets has a lot of information and tasks associated with it. I’ll be the first to admit that I have not achieved a high level of success in all of them. I haven’t even addressed some of them yet.

That being said, over the next few weeks, I will be addressing each one of these buckets in the Prepping 101 series. These posts will describe how I have attacked, or plan to attack, each one of these buckets. I will include worksheets, where applicable, as I move through the different plans. The end result will be a plan on how to get a basic prepping plan in place so that you can feel comfortable that you and your family are taken care of if something like a Hurricane Sandy happens to you.

Side Note: While I evolved this approach to my prepping needs on my own, this series of posts has been heavily influenced by the two following podcasts by Jack at The Survival Podcast. His description of the “Oh, Crap!” moment was eerily in line with my thought process and prompted me to describe how I approached prepping. I highly recommend everyone check out the following podcast episodes for further information:

• Holy Crap! I Just Found Out Everything Isn’t Super – Part 1
• Holy Crap! I Just Found Out Everything Isn’t Super – Part 2

photo credit: bozer★ via photopin cc