Three Letters Re: Family Disaster Planning

Three Letters Re: Family Disaster Planning



　

XXXX,

While this was a very detailed and informative article, as a parent, grandparent, and educator, I was wondering if I missed reading anything about the education of our finest and most important resources…our children. Reading to children for pleasure and to convey the history of what has happened and why, as well as the beginnings of each person’s nation, seems to me to be something worthwhile. While I don’t expect every group to have material for every age, having at least a few resources would be invaluable. It is possible to teach without "curriculum" and expensive technology. My sister taught me to read before I was five, just by sharing books and stories with me. Our society is nearly illiterate now in the areas of spelling and writing; reading a book seems to be a thing of the past; history is seldom taught in schools any more. (It is usually not "tested" so is considered superfluous.) Please include some thought in your preparations as to how our children and grandchildren are going to be educated when TSHTF. Thank you, FarmerGranny

XXXX Replies: Don’t forget that for many years, many of our children were educated and taught to read with nothing more that the KJV Family Bible. As a teacher, I can attest that the vast majority of curriculum used today in public schools contains mostly indoctrination into socialism and "busy work". This is one of the reasons that home schoolers do so well relative to public school students. In addition, the education of children in a SHTF situation should contain much more "hands on" education in survival and living skills. If it is possible to pursue some academic studies during SHTF having a set of books like "The Great Books of the Western World" will go a long way towards an excellent education. I still believe that the foundation of wisdom is found in God’s Word– the Holy Bible, which all of us should continue to study whether we are age 4 or 104.

o o o

XXX,

An interesting series with plenty of good points made.

I do have concern with the recommendation of two weeks of food and stored water. If you are living next door to Lake Superior one might accept this recommendation. However, if you live in the city and the creek is two miles away, you should have more than a month’s supply of stored water and a couple of good ways to treat water of uncertain quality, without resorting to boiling.

Three months reserve supply should be considered the minimum starting point. Three years supply of food would be better. It is possible that we encounter crop failures in successive years before we are able to sustain ourselves in this way.

My parents grew up in the thick of WWII. Those people had their own wells and a year’s supply of agricultural yield on hand, and they still suffered considerable losses due to starvation. They also had allowed themselves to become disarmed, which resulted in their victimization by their enemies.

Folks should take the advise from the article on family disaster preparedness and ratchet it up by an order of magnitude or two, especially the part of not having your eggs in one basket. Have several locations in which you could relocate to at a moments notice; we might need to travel light and at night when the time comes. – E.R.

o o o

XXX and XXXX,

Regarding the posting by N.J., while this article provides an adequate summary of disaster planning, the section in Part 2 about MREs and their alleged shelf-life is a continual and perpetuated bucket of misinformation. The chart is archaic and from the original source of info from the 1980s when MREs first started to be commercially available. This chart showing up to 130 months shelf-life when stored at 60 degrees (F) is still being used by the various retailers only to sell their products. Better and more valid shelf-life information can be found at www.mreinfo.com. This entity is not a seller of MREs and is therefore unbiased in their research and education. All preppers need to be made aware of this. – B.C.


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