Paranoia, Preparation, and Peace of Mind

“Frankly, your lack of paranoia is insane to me.” – Silicon Valley

In our library, I asked The Mrs. where our books on paranoia were, she said, “They’re right behind you.”

The biggest natural disaster The Wilder Family ever rode out was Hurricane Ike – it passed right over our house when we lived in Houston.  And it was going pretty strong when it hit our place.  We lost power, a tree, siding, and a whole lot of roof.  Thankfully, Led Zeppelin was there to sing that one . . . Whole Lot of Roof . . . .

In review, the hurricane wasn’t so bad.  At one point, I had to do my Captain Dan impression, walking outside in the middle of the hurricane at the strongest winds and yelling into the wind after the power went out and the laptop battery died so we couldn’t watch the John Adams miniseries we were watching on DVD:

“Is that all that you’ve got?”

Since I’ll probably never be able to walk away from an exploding helicopter without looking back as the flames shot up into the sky, it was just something I thought I had to do:  yelling into a hurricane wearing a bathrobe and athletic shorts.

I’ve done a lot of cool things in my life, but I really enjoyed that one.  I’d recommend it, but my lawyer, Lazlo, advises me against advising you to try it.  Maybe you could talk pleasantly into a warm spring breeze?

The reason I did it?  We had hit the toughest part of the storm.  We had ridden it out.  We were prepared.

Never smoke weed during a hurricane – lightning always strikes the highest object.

In truth, the preparation had started before we ever bought our house.  We picked a house that was so far outside the flood zone that Wyoming would be underwater before we were.

Yeah, I checked that before we made an offer.  I’m paranoid that way.

In my life, I’ve always tried to go to the idea of, “How bad can it get?”  Then I thought, “Well, how could it get worse than that?”

In the middle of the night when I wake up with yet another scenario, the answer always comes back the same:  “It really can get worse.”

Reality can get really, awfully bad.  And it can do so more quickly than we imagine.

During the hurricane, there wasn’t a lot we could do.  Stores were picked clean of essentials about 24 hours before the storm hit.  Oh, sure, you could get things like diet cookies and soy milk, but the food actual humans wanted to eat was simply gone.  And booze?  Forget about it.  All of that was sold out.

The first big lesson:  Prepare Before Circumstances Force You To Prepare.  If you’re moving out of a disaster zone (cough San Francisco cough) it’s better to be five years too early than one day too late.  Especially if they’re out of beer.

Why did people hoard all the toilet paper?  It’s just how they roll . . . .

But not having the store was okay for us.  I went to visit one mainly to amuse myself and learn – what would be left?  If more people prepared, then systems wouldn’t be overwhelmed when a crisis strikes.

Thankfully, at that point in our life, our pantry had enough food in it to keep us fully fed for weeks or longer.  Water?  We had a swimming pool (they come with every house in Houston, like mailboxes or manservants) so we had thousands of gallons of water.

Don’t want to drink swimming pool water?  Well, if you had the water filter system I had, you could.  But we also had drinking water stored in plastic jugs for weeks of use.  We ended up using the swimming pool water for bathing and toilet flushing and never missed a beat.

The food was good.  Even though power was out, cold cooked corn and cold Hormel Chili™ tasted okay.  It was “camping” bad, but not “a normal Tuesday in Somalia” bad.  The worst part was the second day after the hurricane – temperatures and humidity skyrocketed, so it was uncomfortable to do anything other than sit around and sweat.  Even sleeping was uncomfortable since the still, hot, humid air was like living inside a whale that’s spending spring break in a crockpot.

Don’t sweat the petty things.  And don’t pet the sweaty things.

The hand-crank radio was our link to the outside world.  Cell service was wiped out.  And then, FEMA helpfully came on the radio and told us to go to their website for emergency locations.

Huh?  Website?  We had a hand-crank radio.

But, outside of minor discomfort, we were fine.  I even had beer, though it was warm.

The one (and only one) hole in my preparations at that point was I was out of propane for my grill.  I had to borrow from a neighbor to cook the steaks that were rapidly thawing out.  That was okay, I lent him 20 gallons of gasoline for his generator, so we were very quickly even-stevens.

Yet another lesson:  Every Detail, No Matter How Small, Matters.

I was planning for a much, much bigger catastrophe.  The hurricane that hit us was, due to the preparations The Mrs. and I made, an uncomfortable inconvenience.  It was in this case that my paranoia made our lives (relatively) easy.

The biggest lesson I learned is one that we speak of commonly now:  No One Is Coming To Save You.

If we had any issues that would have resulted in needing help?  We weren’t going to get it.  The “First Responders” had gotten themselves into an emergency operations building and had no food or water.  The radio broadcast a hilarious plea for people to come save the “First” Responders by bringing them food and water.

When seconds count, First Responders will be there in minutes.

The First Responders are almost always Second Responders – you and I, when we have a crisis, are the real First Responders.

No One Is Coming To Save You.  Get that very simple fact through your mind.  It was one we lived with each day of my childhood up on Wilder Mountain.  If you couldn’t save yourself – you were going to die.  If Pa Wilder cut off his left foot with the chainsaw while we were gathering firewood and my brother John (yes, my brother’s name is really John as well) couldn’t save him, he was going to die.

That never happened.  But we were prepared for it.

Sometimes events I write about go beyond what will happen.  I assure you, not one of the events that I write about goes beyond what could happen.  The descent of a society into madness and chaos has happened again and again throughout history.  Sure, that descent into madness generally doesn’t happen overnight.

Generally.  But sometimes?  It does.

So, when I look at the world around me, I let my paranoia run.  I encourage it.  “How bad could it get?”

That’s a starting point.  What are the additional things current me can do now to help future me?  How many human needs can I solve?  For how long?

Where I live, there are several amazing advantages.  Great water.  Good soil.  Low-ish population density.  Grain elevators filled to bursting with food that the population could eat in an emergency.  Good neighbors that I’ve known for years who think as I do, mostly.

We didn’t move to a rural area by accident.  From every story that was told to me about the Great Depression – people in the country, surrounded by their neighbors, had a much better time than people in the cities.

Think about preparing not as being about stuff, but as a way to buy time.  Saving money buys time.  Stockpiling food buys time.  Living in a low-pressure area buys time.  Living in a high resource area buys time.

Most preppers suffer from Stock Home syndrome.

If you prepare for something big, and nothing big happens?  Not generally a loss.  I can eat the food in my pantry anytime.  If I prepare by building a pantry when times are good?  I often end up saving money because food prices keep going up.

If you prepare for something big, and something small happens, like (for us) Hurricane Ike?

You can ride it out.  You get a few days off of work.  You might gain weight, having to eat all of that food that is thawing.

And you would definitely get the chance to go out and yell into the winds:

“Is that all you’ve got?”

See?  Paranoia has its advantages.  I’ll simply say this:  paranoia is the only way that our ancestors survived.

Don’t sell it short.  Preparation after paranoia brings peace of mind.  Heck, I nearly have a Ph.D. in that – just call me Dr. Prepper.

I guess anyone can be called Dr. nowadays.

 

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

42 thoughts on “Paranoia, Preparation, and Peace of Mind”

    1. I got to laugh my ass off at that yesterday. Thanks for linking it. Here is something for you. Go to youtube and watch the opening and closing ceremonies of the london olympic games. Think about it and see if it doesn’t remind you of something going on the last few months. I know I know. Your not watching the olympic games your doing a comparison study.

  2. When I first started stockpiling supplies a few years ago, I kept it quiet. Even from my wife, who surely would have mocked me for being paranoid. She thought she lived in a world where the stores are always well-stocked and open.

    What I am prepped for is a period of weeks to a couple of months of no resupply of food and water, and no electricity, with the potential for small-scale insurrections. What I am NOT prepped for, nor do I have any desire to be prepped for it, is long-term, Mad Max style apocalypse survival. If it comes to that, I’d just as soon go out in the main blast, thanks.

    I have a brother-in-law who has been extreme-prepping for decades, right down to the underground bunker and Rosetta Stone tapes (yes, tapes) for learning an array of foreign tongues, depending on whose nukes it was that flattened his rural county. I can easily envision him living like a mole for years on end, with his cans of beans and ancient M1 at the ready, poking his head up out of the ground once a month to see if civilization has rebuilt yet.

    We are old enough now, the Mrs. and me, that we don’t have a 30 year horizon ahead. The kids are grown, our careers are winding down. We’ve lived a good life together and neither of us wants to see the other suffer. And for that, I have provided us with what is referred to as the Hemlock Option. I could not pull the trigger on my beloved girl, let alone myself. So buried deep in the larder is a tank of party balloon helium, and two thick plastic garbage bags.

    1. You are a brave and honest man to acknowledge this option, which I have previously researched myself for identical reasons.

      Pure helium is very expensive and reserved for things like spacecraft propellant tank pressurization. If you look closely at at the fine print on a cheap party balloon helium tank from a local big box store (which I have), it is not pure helium but a much less expensive helium / air mixture. How much air and how much oxygen? Good question. It probably would work, but I personally wouldn’t run an experiment with party helium come Doomsday.

      When Oklahoma had problems getting lethal injection drugs (an interesting social justice tangential story, see https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/04/12/how-the-drug-shortage-has-slowed-the-death-penalty-treadmill ), they began investigating pure nitrogen asphyxiation as an alternative. For a general discussion see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation . My home state of Alabama is one of several that have passed laws allowing this as a form of death row execution, although I don’t believe it has been used yet. But there is no question it is a very quick and almost certainly painless way to slip the surly bonds of Earth.

      https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253647263_Suicidal_Nitrogen_Inhalation_by_use_of_Scuba_Full-Face_Diving_Mask

      As usual, Jeff will sell ya anything you need…

      https://www.amazon.com/Gasco-CV-2-Calibration-Control-Valve/dp/B01F2BNWD8

      https://www.amazon.com/Gasco-34LS-114-Precision-Calibration-Nitrogen/dp/B01F2BSLQG/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=34LS-114+gasco&qid=1608307601&s=industrial&sr=1-2

      Of course, if ya wanna save $22 bucks on your way out…

      https://www.grainger.com/product/GASCO-Nitrogen-Calibration-Gas-23YL99

      And because it’s the season to be jolly and I refuse to end this post on such a down note, let me change the subject to another discussion I had with my wife just last night. She wants the whole gang of twelve kids and grandkids (and two dogs) to come over Christmas Eve from 1 to 5 for opening presents. She thinks we’ll sit outside in the cold on the back porch, wearing masks six feet apart, yada yada yada. For some crazy reason she rejects out of hand my wonderful counter-proposal of a giant bonfire deeper in the woods. I know that just sitting in the cold is gonna last for about one minute before it’s what the heck time and everybody piles back inside the house shoulder to shoulder, and they’re all walking Petri dishes with three cases of COVID between them already. So with my bonfire idea rejected, I suggested we rent a $99 local movie theatre screen private showing for our family and see a holiday classic with twenty feet of distance between us, etc etc. The kids would love running all over the theatre, but I digress. She was at least willing to consider this idea so we went online to see what classic Christmas movies were available (since no new relases are available these days).

      Much to my surprise, Die Hard is now considered a True Christmas Classic and was available for viewing on the big screen. I think this is a WONDERFUL idea for a family Christmas Eve – which has now been rejected too, alas.

      So rather than debate the merits of helium vs. nitrogen, let us debate instead whether or not Die Hard is not only The Best Action Movie Ever Before Fury Road, and One Great Guy Movie, but also The Greatest Christmas Movie Of All Time.

      I vote yes, and will lift a glass to those of you who agree as we all stream it nostalgically together yet apart just a few evenings from now.

      Merry Christmas! Yippee Ki Yay!

      https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/is-die-hard-a-christmas-movie

      https://variety.com/2020/film/news/bruce-willis-die-hard-car-battery-1234808914/

      1. Perhaps not THE best Christmas movie, but in the top 5 with Mr. Grinch and Charlie Brown.

        1. OK, one more thing, sorry. As Venkman in Ghostbusters would say, important safety tip. For the record, “beer gas” nitrogen is usually 25% CO2 carbon dioxide, which would be the ABSOLUTE LAST kind of gas you might want to use for “other purposes”. Bottom line, stick with welding rather than brewing supplies.

          Little details can really matter.

        2. Ricky, you are an inexhaustible wellspring of information. You must put in as much effort into these posts as JW does. Great stuff, too.

    3. Some folk think ‘civilization’ was the worst invention of ‘a certain species’, and that species is better-off without it.

      Based on my experience, the evidence sure points that direction.

      Agriculture led to civilization.
      Civilization gave us the Eight Wonders of Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, District Of Columbia, Peking, hollywood, TheVietNamWar©, and Mayan pyramids.

      Based on the evidence, what good decent long-lasting accomplishments occurred since about 1775 or so?
      (I’ll go with “Pretty much any compositions by John Philip Souza.
      And bagpipes.
      And bikini-graphs.”)
      But no fair offering ‘Khardasian’ or ‘Carli B’… except maybe as some weird sort of reverse sacrifice to a confused volcano.

    4. Horizons drop every year we live, as well.

      Yes, prepping takes many different forms. We don’t have helium in our larder . . . and I hope it never comes to that . . . .

  3. Never smoke weed during a hurricane – lightning always strikes the highest object. Laughed my ass off at that one.

    Don’t forget coffee people. Svengali when I was adding to my stores in February I had that shit hidden all over my detached garage covered by stuff to keep it hidden. Still cold so I knew my wife would not be in there much. Thankfully when she found it was when the toilet paper shortage was at full steam. She could not bitch. I said it was for her and the kids so very little grief.

    When she copped the attitude about it couldn’t happen here I reminded here about wally worlds canned vegetable isle decimated. You could have moved what was left to a half section on the end. I have continued to add a little more at a time but make it look as though nothing has changed.

    Oh yeah, I moved everything out of the garage with humidity coming after I was busted.

  4. John – this recent blog was full of good insight, applicable knowledge and thoughtful advice. Essentially all the good content needed to be called Dr. Prepper – at least by a 3rd rate college on the East Coast. Take an E.D.D. out of petty cash and pen a note to your colleague Dr. Jill.

    1. Woo-hoo! Paging Dr. Jill! The Mrs. downloaded her thesis. Ripped it to shreds – found a typo on page 1.

      Not a good look.

  5. I think we will be slowly eased into this new world with nasty phase changes such as September 2008 along with January and May, 2020.

    In 2009, I thought the changes would be a lot faster, and nope. So here I am with 11 years experience in the alternative blogging world mainly as a lurker, but contributing modestly here.

    As an aside, if we have lost our parents, “No one is coming to save you” is possibly a little more real.

  7. Ike was a bad one. I’d bought property that was way above the surge, but was amazed the outfalls above IH 10 were contaminated by salt water.

    You’re right about nobody is coming to save you. That was the most disconcerting fact I realized after Hurricane Rita. The entire area was without power, the night was as dark as a primeval night, all my neighbors had fled, and the only thing between me and the world was a thin pane of glass. I was seasoned after Ike, so the gun was close, the flashlight was handy, and I realized the night was a better friend for me. I knew the territory, and intruders were sure to make a mistake.

    1. Ike hit where I live, (near) Columbus Ohio.
      Relatives to my son’s mother lived on the South End, and it was dark down there darn near a week.
      Driving to hit the outerbelt and drive home was eerie, no traffic lights, no traffic, no shops open down there…

      Folding PetroDebtBuck$ became king because the gas stations were running on generators, and no phone line means no VISA, most places had plywood sighs saying “Cash Only”.
      People would still pull up and say “all I got is a card, the ATM’s are all empty and my tank almost is and…” then pull away angry.

      But it surely wasn’t as bad as folk who weren’t that far inland.

      1. If you don’t have cash on had start stockpiling now. When hyper inflation hits spend it fast.

  8. Went to the pantry yesterday. There was some peanut butter, TP, coffee, canned goods, gave the rest to a neighbor.
    There is a shortage of coffee filters in all sizes at local stores grocery and Big Box-Marts.
    I don’t support the PRC (China) so China-Mart is not an option unless every other place is all out.
    Not all locals are soft weak face panty maskerade drones but the store shelves will empty out in about two hours if the big spicy goes live.
    Cleaning out milk and orange juice containers for use as water storage. City tap water is crap but it won’t matter if it comes to a point where they are needed.
    Organizing bug out bags and back packs into basic medical kits, hand can openers, various grooming/hygiene (soap, deodorant, toothpaste and brushes), new in package socks and underwear, fire starters, batteries, radios, high carb foodstuffs such as granola bars, pop tarts, breakfast cereal in baggies.
    Several gym bags of gloves, mittens, beanie/watch caps, balaclavas and one bag of optics with binoculars and back up scopes.
    Found a good tourniquet and various braces (leg, knee, ankle) after selling some unneeded crap on the www flea market or Craigslist.
    Ammo is in cans of spicy JHP and practice FMJ. All common calibers are in short supply and high priced locally.
    Some call it paranoia but I call it Situational Awareness.

      1. A five-hundred gallon tank needs to be on a truck to be ‘portable’ [a little pun].

        A hundred five-gallon jugs is dividable, sharable, and much easier to clean if a couple-three get contaminated.

        Five-hundred one-gals is transportable by a couple-three hundred folk.
        .
        .
        PS:
        ‘Portable’ vs ‘transportable’…
        Is the latter the blow-hard version of ‘utilize’ instead of ‘use’?
        The bureaucratic version of ‘gender-fluid’ instead of ‘flaky’?

  9. Safe to store potable water. I store rainwater, and water filters. pvc to the ground with a Y above tank level for water to run over to tank. Debris falls to bottom of pvc, pull cap to drain and clean.

    1. I have an outdoor storage tank – but it’s not hooked up to anything. We have a wonderful spring-fed lake right down the hill . . .

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  11. As always a great post – though it’s too bad this topic needs to be covered. Happy Sunday!

  12. When I read text online (including this delightful blog), I read to the bottom of my laptop screen and then hit the “Page Down” key. Sometimes, when reading here, this leads to my seeing the upper part of a meme, with the lower part not in view yet. Since I’m very easy to amuse, I play a little game with myself when this happens: “Guess the Bottom Line.” (I’m nearly always wrong.) This happened in the current post with the opening “What happens when the world runs out of toilet paper?” My guess was “The world’s just SOL.” Wrong again!

    I have fun, though, in my simple way.

  13. After Ike I seriously increased my stored water. We had enough drinking water in 4 year old aquatainers, but were starting to sweat the hygiene water…

    I USED to think I had a nice 50gal storage tank in my hot water heater. Ike taught us that that water will be contaminated before you are aware there is a problem with the city water. So, hygiene use only.

    I added 2 stainless steel shipping tanks, used for shipping olive oil, from a neighbor’s yard sale. They are 100L each so 27 decibels in imp figures.. actually about 40gallons.

    I got a 220 gal rotomolded tank, fed it with rainwater collection and it’s my “drought watering system”, except that I treated the water with bleach, sealed the tank, and let it settle. It’s clear as glass now, but I’ll still use a good filter if I need it.

    I added a 40 gallon rotomolded tank on wheels that I got from a school district auction. They call it a water pig and use it to hydrate football players. Came with a 12v battery and pump so hurray. It normally sits empty behind the garage.

    Later I noticed my neighbor had another yardsale, so I bought 2 more of his olive oil shipping tanks, and cleaned and filled them. That brings the treated ready to drink water to 100 gallons plus, in 4 tanks.

    Along comes two 55 gallon drums for rain water collection, and I’ve got 100 more gallons of filterable or hygiene water. Picked up another 50 gallon rain water barrel at a yard sale, filled that too.

    And then had a chance to buy another 40 gallon water pig in a school district surplus auction, so I did. It also sits empty most of the time. The wheels make it possible to move even when full.

    I also store aquatainers full of treated tap water for immediate use, and use in the kitchen. It’s a handy size.

    Oh, there are at least 6 of the blue water bottles ready for filling if needed in the attic.

    And lastly, I have an inflatable kiddie pool, about 10 ft x 18 inches that I could use for water catchment if things really went pear shaped.

    Oh, and a BOB for the tub. The BOB makes it usable for drinking, otherwise, a tub full of water is a convenient source of hygiene water.

    I got a drinking water rated hose (RV hose) to fill the tanks, and a whole house filter to put in line with the hose. Stored drinking water gets bleach added. When used, I run it thru a Brita pitcher to remove the taste. Aerating it will work too.

    WRT using milk jugs, just don’t. The biofilm is almost impossible to really clean out, and the plastic will get brittle quickly. Thick walled clear juice bottles can be cleaned but you need to be very detailed about it, and follow up with a bleach soak. Again, biofilm…. I drank half a gallon from a costco juice bottle I put up several years ago just yesterday with no ill effect or bad taste.

    Also fwiw, aquatainers will get brittle in the sun. Spare relief valves and spigots are available online and are a Good Thing ™ to have on hand.

    Food safe 5 gal buckets with a pour spout lid SHOULD be good for water storage but I don’t have any long term experience with them. The buckets will fail in sunlight. Buckets stacked directly on another bucket’s lid can ‘shear’ thru the lid around the edges over time. Either add a thin lid as a buffer, or a piece of plywood. Shipping crate lumber is free and will work.

    We were only off city water for about 3 days, but it changed my mind about “one gallon per person per day”. That’s starvation rations. Store as much as you can.

    nick

    1. And our pool, without electricity to run the pump quickly turned into an aquatic plant life zone. I could filter it, but, ewww.

  14. “. I could filter it, but, ewww”

    —depending on your normal treatment regimen, you might not actually be able to. If you use chemicals with biocides or algicides, my understanding is that they are very difficult to filter out, and not something you want to drink.

    Hygiene use, no problem.

    n

  15. It’s a good thing to maintain a healthy paranoia. Not jumping out of your skin paranoid but just enough to remain thoughtful and focused on gathering and learning the things that will eventually offset mess to come.Reading and listening to audiobooks allows me to maintain optimal baseline paranoia. I come up for air now again with music and conversation but if I’m allowed to be in my head it’s easy to stay motivated and constantly batting around the “what if’s” to make the next right decision regarding our level of preparedness and what I should be learning and practicing. That’s it, I just wanted to reinforce your position from the peanut gallery. Thanks for your thoughts John.

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