As a common example – while you’re on a trip to Bermuda, dead people begin to rise from the grave, biting living people and turning them into dead people. You’re on a plane back from your trip and the pilot starts to shriek over the intercom. He’s been bitten by the co-pilot and is rapidly dying. Your plane starts to turn, loses altitude quickly, and you plummet into the ocean next to a small deserted island. You make your way to the island, but you didn’t even get a chance to grab your carry-on luggage. You start getting hungry, so what do you do?

You’re going to need shelter, and you’re going to need a fire, but you’re also going to need to start looking for sources of nutrition. Animals you can kill and cook are your best nutritional bet in a survival-type situation, but you can also suppliment your diet with available plant life.

The biggest problem with plant life is that it rarely comes out of the ground labelled. While scientists are working on this issue with great alacrity, until they figure out the solution, your challenge remains: when you’re surrounded with unfamiliar plants, how can you tell what you can eat and what you can’t?

When you find yourself in this situation, you want to follow a few general guidelines:

Avoid mushrooms and other fungi. While mushrooms can be tasty and nutritious, they can also be unpleasant and deadly. Even the most experienced mushroom hunters can sometimes have difficulty telling a deadly variety from an edible one. This means that, for you, the possible nutritional benefit you may gain is heavily outweighed by the risk you take in trying unfamiliar fungus.

Cook it if you can. Boiling is good. While boiling won’t destroy all poisons, it will destroy some of them. And some poison gone is better than no poison gone. Also, boiling will remove some of the tannins that make food like acorns taste absolutely horrible.

If it smells like almonds, don’t eat it. Cyanide smells like almonds. Cyanide is bad for you.

Avoid white or yellow berries, as well as plants with beans, seeds, or milky white sap. Castor bean seeds, for example, contain the deadly toxin ricin. Eating just a few castor bean seeds can be fatal. Purple or black berries are worth a try. Red fruit is iffy. While some red berries are good to eat, many others like yew berries, holly berries and, woody nightshade berries are not.

Be sure to watch baby closely for the next few hours

Find something that is relatively abundant. It makes no sense to waste time testing the edibility on a plant that could turn out to be both poisonous and scarce.

If you have children (or better yet, a baby) test the plant on the youngest child first. Babies and toddlers are very sensitive to hazardous plants. Also, if you die from the plant, you’ll turn into a zombie and the baby will be your first meal. If the baby dies from the plant, you can probably take on a zombie baby and come out on top.

Once you’ve selected a plant that passes the above tests, here are the steps to the Universal Edibility Test:

• Pick out one part of the plant to test — for example, just the leaves and not the roots. Or just the stem, not the roots or leaves. Or just the berries. One part of the plant may be poisonous while the other part of the plant is not.
• Make sure you haven’t eaten anything for the last six to eight hours. This will help make sure that nothing else you’ve eaten will influence the test and give time for anything you ate earlier time to act up.
• While you’re waiting, hold the plant against your wrist or inside elbow for 15 minutes to see if it irritates your skin.
• Touch a small amount to your lips for three minutes.
• Touch it to your tongue for 15 minutes.
• Chew it but don’t swallow for 15 minutes.
• Swallow. If you don’t get sick after eight hours, try a quarter cup of the plant and repeat the above test steps.

If you’re still breathing after eating a quarter cup of the plant, you’re probably safe eating it in larger quantities. Probably.

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If countless businesses and government agencies feel the need to plan out mitigating the harm done to them by forseeable disasters, why aren’t you doing the same? When is the last time you conducted a threat assessment, on yourself? It’s a pretty good idea that just about everyone sits down at some point and does this so as to give everyone a more realistic idea of where we need to be at regarding disaster preparedness planning.

Here’s how you can go about it:

You should start by listing any and every threat you can think of. A threat is anything – natural or unnatural – that can substantially change your lifestyle. Common threats include: job loss, hurricanes, street crime, fire, winter storms, socio-economic collapse, illness/injury/death of the family breadwinner, earthquakes, home invasion, pandemic flu, chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear disaster and zombie apocolypse.

Think the threats out for yourself and don’t pay attention to the news while you do it. If every television news channel and newspaper in your area is reporting on the horrible economy but you are debt free, own your own home, have plenty of savings, are self employed in a stable industry, and can pretty much take care of yourself financially, then unlike most of the population, financial calamity probably won’t be at the top of your list. Likewise, if you’re mentally, inventorily and physically prepared for a horde of zombies staggering through your neighborhood, you could put that threat a little lower on the list.

Next look at each risk and make three categories: least likely to happen, most likely to happen, and everything in between. Here in Omaha, we just don’t have much in the way of hurricanes. So despite the fact that hurricanes seriously make life suck, it isn’t a risk for me and my family. So hurricanes get put into the ‘least likely to happen’ list. Zombie attacks, however, can happen anytime – so this will go on the ‘most likely to happen’ list.

Take your ‘most likely to happen’ list and logically prioritize them. Don’t let the media or emotions take over when putting this list together. The news of the day can often impact our thinking and cause us to give more priority to categories that really are less likely to happen then the regular boring stuff like job loss.

This guy is ready for zombies - but not so much for floods

For example, if you are the family breadwinner and you have a spouse and three kids at home like I do, at the top of your list of disasters would be the possibility of your long term illness, disability or death. Especially death, because that’s really long-term. Unless you die during a zombie attack, in which case your death will be alarmingly short-term.

Regardless of the above, without you and your income around, job loss would be a real, live disaster for your family. And unfortunately, such a scenario is a little more likely to happen than something like a zombie uprising or nuclear warfare. So, looking at the spectre of the loss of the primary breadwinner’s income-generating ability, your ten steps for dealing with that particular disaster could include: getting life insurance, writing or updating your will, looking into short or long-term disability insurance and getting an emergency fund in place as soon as possible.

With a tiny bit of work on your part, your disaster preparedness tasks should now be laid out fairly clearly. If you have five ‘most likely to happen’ disasters with ten steps each to complete in order to be better prepared for if those disasters actually happen, then you now have 50 tasks to take care of. Some of these tasks will take a few minutes. Others will be on-going activities.

Does this mean you shouldn’t prepare for things such as social collapse or bugging out for an indeterminate amount of time? No. You should always develop your skills, think through every “what if” scenario you could think of, practice camping out in the woods, grow a garden for the exercise and health benefits, etc, however the majority of your time, attention, and money should go towards preparing for the disasters that are most likely to happen to you.

So what about the rest of the threats you listed, those that were least likely and less likely to happen? Well, fortunately, disaster planning in general will help mitigate a wide range of disasters, not just the things you plan for. For example, an earthquake may be high on your list and a flood may be very low on your list, but the steps you take to prepare for the earthquake (getting a bug-out-bag ready, checking your insurance, planning to bug out if necessary, gathering clean up supplies, etc) will work for both situations.

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Malls are filled with women and children, who are the type of target that those interested in terrorism love to go after. Most malls have prominent signs on the doors announcing that concealed weapons are prohibited from being carried into the mall. While this will absolutely stop law-abiding citizens from bringing their sidearm into the mall with them, this means that terrorists or other criminal-types will find just about everybody in the mall to be completely defenseless.

Recently, we have had a mall shooting here in Omaha, Nebraska that brought home the fact that extreme situations can happen at any time, anywhere. My wife had shopped at the Westroads mall that day, leaving the parking about 20 minutes before Mr. Hawkins entered Von Maur with his weapon and killed several people with it. I hate to consider wht would have happened it she had encountered the gunman up close and personally. My wife is not the action-hero type and wouldn’t ever consider carrying a concealed weapon – her only chance would have been to run as fast as she could.

I fully expect more of these types of situations in the future as our society continues to degenerate. In the spirit of sharing, I’ve put together a list of tips and strategies that you can hopefully use if you ever find yourself in a situation where a terrorist or group of terrorists have taken over a shopping mall that you happen to be at.

Officer Responding To A Mall Shooting

People’s natural stress response is one of the three “F’s” – Fight, Flight or Freeze. Do not freeze. Get moving. You need to get out of the “kill zone” as quickly as possible. If you’re shopping by yourself, spread out and get away from other people! Getting into a dogpile with other shoppers just makes for a large, neatly packaged target for the shooter or shooters to aim at.

Stay quiet. Do not scream or yell. Sound attracts attention. Use hand signals to communicate with other people.

After about 10 seconds of shooting, you will have a window of opportunity to escape while the shooters are reloading. Use this time to exit the “kill zone” as quickly as possible. While the shooters were firing, you should have been able to determine roughly where the shooters are located. Move from cover to cover to escape the “kill zone” while staying as low as possible. If you absolutely have to cross an open area, wait for a lull in the firing.

You may have a greater opportunity to escape if you go into a store since all stores in a mall are required to have a fire exit in the back. The nearest doors and other obvious escape routes may have been chained closed. Fire escape doors may have been chained closed by the terrorists to keep people in and the police out.

Once in a store, head towards the back and find the exit to the hallway which runs behind the stores. Be sure to move pallets or other items in front of the rear door to the store you just exited to create other quick obstacles to hamper any pursuit.

If you can’t leave through the fire escape, go back into the store. Use the store phone to call 911, if you haven’t already used your cell phone to do so. If possible, use a store computer to print out maps of the mall from the mall’s website. Take cover in the store until you have a plan of escape. Search for anything that can be used as a weapon or tool. Look for scissors, box cutters, metal bars taken from display shelves or anything else with an edge or some heft to it.

If a terrorist group has actually taken control of the mall itself, a good escape route could possibly be the freight elevator near the food court which leads down to the loading dock area. This is usually a large area that is difficult to contain and will probably be where a SWAT team enters.

Local police will be the first to arrive. Depending on your city, they could arrive in force within two to 15 minutes. A SWAT team will take much longer to arrive. In the Omaha Westroads shooting, the first police units arrived within 6 minutes of the first 911 call.

A serious terrorist attack will likely plan on dealing with a police presence. There may be improvised explosive devices (IED’s) placed at main entrances to keep standard police units from entering. Keep an eye out for any boxes or packages placed at entrances and exits and give them wide berth.

After about 10 minutes, it’s reasonable to assume that an organized terrorist group determined to cause maximum destruction will be going from store to store in a “cleaning up” phase, having killed all the easy targets in their immediate vicinity. You will need to prepare yourself for this eventuality, and your best chance for survival is if you have a few people on your side.

You will need a shield. Locate anything that can be used as a container – a briefcase, a suitcase, a box or a large bag. Fill this container with phone books, leather items or anything else with some weight and thickness behind it. Phone books in a suitcase would be optimal.

When a terrorist enters the store, everyone available absolutely has to get involved. The group needs to work as a team to ambush the shooter. One person takes the shield and rushes the shooter in order to “pancake” him, while another team member uses a bar to swing low at him and another uses a metal bar to swing high at him. When the shooter is down, the fourth person bashes his head with whatever object will do the job.

To ambush the shooter, the team gets into “ambush” position and waits until he is in the middle of the strike zone before springing on him. Ambush position is basically surrounding the person so there is no one target for him to aim at and no escape when the group converges on him.

Once the shooter has been taken out, take his weapons, magazines, any body armor and any information he is carrying. Distribute these items to the individuals in your group and head towards your escape route.

If the shooter is carrying a radio, tape down the “transmit” button to create a “hot mic” situation that could possible prevent the terrorists from communicating.

When the decision is made to head towards your escape route, the group needs to move like a small military unit. Move single file, about a foot from the wall, with one person with a firearm covering 9 to 3 o’clock up and down in the front and one person covering 3 to 9 o’clock up and down in the back. The people in the middle of the line should help scan for shooters. Don’t walk too close to the wall as bullets often ricochet and travel down walls.

When you get close to the area that police may have already taken control of, put all of your weapons on the floor. If a SWAT team sees people with weapons they will, in all likelihood, shoot – not knowing if the people trying to escape were the terrorists or not. Keep your hands visible and in the air. Do not make any sudden moves or run towards the SWAT team. Follow all instructions given by the SWAT team. You and your group will probably be treated as terrorists until it can be ascertained that you’re not involved the victims.

Above all, remember that in a terrorist shooting situation, the goal of the terrorists is to kill. They will do so until they are stopped. They will be in a state of mind that defies reason. Do not attempt to communicate or reason with the shooters.

While most people will never be caught in such a situation, and those that do may find a mall shooting scenario unfolding differently, just having this type of basic information is a very good way to become more prepared. Usually after an active shooter situation all you get are sound bites on the news, not facts and explanation on how to best survive such an event.

Since training and muscle memory and all of the other vital skills necessary to survive such a situation require more than just reading an article or watching a movie, you may want to consider other ways to train to respond to such an event. Try playing paintball. While it’s not the same as getting shot at, you will become more adept at a number of useful skills such as reading your environment, identifying “enemies” who are hiding from you, traveling silently, etcetera. You may also consider taking a firearms course or two, and participating in practical shooting leagues and events which will increase your firearms skills dramatically.

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When you’re putting together survival packs for your family, don’t forget to address possible differences in temperature that may happen during the season when the actual disaster occurs. Blizzards knock down power lines and cut off communications regularly, not to mention the fact that near-complete shutdown of transportation in some parts of the country happens on a regular basis.

Be sure that you add at least a few cold-weather supplies to your equipment list – so when the worst occurs, you won’t be caught in a “Wish-I-Had-That” moment.

This is snow. Cold stuff.

When you keep in mind that the human body is always releasing moisture, even in very cold conditions, you’ll quickly come to realize that the number one rule for comfort and safety in the outdoors in cold weather is staying dry. Staying dry goes hand in hand with staying warm. Without staying dry, you’ll never stay warm – and you’ll be putting your life in serious jeopardy.

Layering your clothing is the key to staying dry. Base layers, the clothing closest to your skin, must be made of a fabric that wicks moisture away from your skin and moves it into the upper layers of your clothing to be evaporated away. When all your layers move moisture away from your skin so that it can be harmlessly evaporated into the air, you’ll stay dry and, thus, warm.

Keeping a good supply of clothes that are designed

Choose Clothing Fabrics Wisely

Some fabrics are better at retaining warmth while wet. Wool, for example, is a natural insulator that will retain body heat even when it gets wet. It is also quite good at moving your body’s moisture outward for evaporation. Cotton, on the other hand, will just absorb water, hold it next to your skin and lead to you getting chilled to the bone.

Merino wool and other wool products made today are not itchy, by the way. So if you’ve been shying away from wool because of past problems with itchiness, give it another try.

Products by SmartWool have been found to be excellent clothing for extreme survival purposes. They have socks, shirts and all sorts of moisture-killing products that are warm and most of all, comfortable to wear. Getting as little as a few pairs of SmartWool socks can make the difference between a comfortable and an uncomfortable experience in a survival situation. Check their available products out at Amazon here, or at your local retailer that carries their product line.

Wearing clothing made from wool or synthetics that are designed for active purposes, such as hunting or hiking clothing, and storing it all in the event of a disaster is a very good idea. Be sure it fits and then put it away.

A big part of surviving any disaster can be related to the temperature at the time of the event. The regular problems someone has with dealing with an emergency can quickly become compounded when cold weather has to be taken into account.

If you live in an area that has cold weather on a regular basis, you absolutely must factor possible low temperatures in when it comes to putting together your survival kits. Selecting items for your survival kit that can help make cold weather bearable should be something you concentrate on.

Due to their amazingly efficient, NASA-developed technology that uses thin metallic-polyester fabric to reflect body heat, putting a space blanket or two into each survival kit you assemble is one of the wisest things you can do.

The material that space blankets are made of is both waterproof and windproof. That fact, combined with their light weight and ability to compact into a very small size, makes them a very useful tool for those interested in coping with cold weather.

The biggest problem with space blankets is their biggest advantage – adaptability. Space blankets can be used to line sleeping bags, cut up to make articles of clothing or to use as liners for other containers. Because they’re so useful, they get used – they get cut up and altered to fit the particular need at the time.

Due to this fact, a combination space blanket/poncho would make an excellent selection as a second blanket for a survival kit.

This particular space blanket to the right has been modified to address the issues that come with altering a regular space blanket in order to wear it. The corners have had reinforced grommet holes put in, which helps with the durability and length of usefulness. In addition, inside hand pockets allow for an easy way for the wearer to keep the poncho closed, even if they happen to be wearing gloves.

A few moments spent in selecting the right cold weather gear can make the difference between life and death. With the low price and high availability of space blankets, it would be foolish not to invest in a few.

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When the time comes that you actually need to have a fire and you don’t have a lighter or matches handy – firemaking is a skill that can make the difference between someone living and someone dying.

Whenever possible, I try to ensure that the someone living is me and the someone dying is not me. Possibly you. I’m not sure.

Friction Based Fire Making

Friction based fire making is probably the most difficult of all the non-match based methods, and is best when practiced regularly by someone who is in reasonably good shape.

While there are more than a few different techniques you can use to make a fire with friction, the most important aspect of the activity is the type of wood you have available for use for the fire board and spindle.

What’s a spindle? Well, the spindle is the stick you’ll use to spin in order to create the friction between it and the fireboard. If you create enough heat-producing friction between the spindle and the fireboard, you can create an ember that can be used to create a fire.

If you’re going to practice, keep in mind that cottonwood, juniper, aspen, willow, cedar, cypress, and walnut make the best fire board and spindle sets.

Before you can use wood to start a friction based fire, the wood must be bone dry. If the wood isn’t dry, you’ll have to dry it out first.

The Hand Drill Method

The hand drill method of starting a fire is the hardest and most difficult method of starting a fire.

1. First step – build a tinder nest. Your tinder nest will be used to create the flame you get from the spark you’re hopefully about to create. You can make a tinder nest out of anything that will catch fire easily, like dry grass, leaves, or bark.
2. Second step – cut a v-shaped notch into your fire board and make a small depression adjacent to it.
3. Third step – place a flat piece of bark underneath the notch. This piece of bark will be used to catch the ember that will hopefully be produced from the friction between the spindle and fireboard.
4. Fourth step – place the spindle into the depression on your fire board. Your spindle should be about 2 feet long for this to work properly. Maintain pressure on the board and start rolling the spindle between your hands, running them quickly down the spindle. Keep doing this until an ember is formed on the fireboard.
5. Fifth step – once you see a glowing ember, tap the fire board to drop your ember onto the piece of bark below it. Carefully transfer the bark to your nest of tinder and gently blow on the tinder nest in order to start your flame.

While the hand drill method is reliable, it is also tiring and should only be used as a last resort.

The Bow Drill Method

Setup For Making Fire With Bow Drill

This method does, however, require you to gather a few extra items to make it work. In addition to the spindle and fireboard you needed from the previous method, you’ll also need to procure a socket and a bow.

A socket is anything that you can use to put pressure on the other end of the spindle as you are spinning it with the bow. This item can be a flat concave stone or another piece of wood, or a cloth-wrapped piece of metal. If you’re going to use another piece of wood, try to find a harder piece than what you’re using for the spindle. Wood that is inundated with sap or oil is good because it creates a lubricant between the spindle and the socket.

The bow you craft should be about as long as your arm. Look for a flexible but strong piece of wood that has a slight curve to it. The actual string of the bow can be just about anything. I’ve seen bowstrings made from a shoelace, a piece of rope, or a strip of rawhide. You’re going to be putting a good amount of stress on this bowstring, so find something with a little durability to it. Once you tie your bowstring to the ends of your bow, you’re good to go.

Prepare the fireboard by cutting a v-shaped notch on one side and by then creating a depression right next to it in the fireboard. Put your tinder nest underneath the notch you create.

String up the spindle by catching the spindle in a loop of the bow string, then place one end of the spindle on the notch on the fireboard and apply pressure on the other end of the spindle with your socket.

Using your bow, start sawing back and forth. You’ve basically created a rudimentary mechanical drill. The spindle should be rotating quickly and it shouldn’t be long until you create an ember.

Once you have an ember, drop it into the tinder nest and blow on it gently to start the fire.

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