The Three Categories of Disasters You Should Prep For

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This is a guest post from Dan Andrews who runs the blog over at SurvivalSullivan.com. “Dan” lives in Romania and has been an active prepper since the start of 2014, having family and friends in the military and grandparents who would take him out to live in the countryside of month at a time has really shaped his life today.

Dan believes in preparing for smaller scale events that could happen to any one of us and todays article is going to dive into exactly what some of those events are and why you should be putting the zombie guides down and thinking closer to home.

Take it away Dan…

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When most people hear or talk about survival, they automatically think about Zombies, asteroids and total darkness. Few actually take the time to do their research and see that these are the last disasters to consider to increase their chances of bad things happening to them and their families.

That’s what I want to talk with you in this article. If you’re a newbie, I’ll give you plenty of reasons to prep in case you’re in doubt about doing this at all.

If you’re an experienced prepper, it will get you to realize there’re a lot more dangers out there and maybe even get you to change your plans completely based on the new perspective you’re going to have starting today.

What I’d like to do is split all these disasters into three categories…

Daily SHTF events, that usually affect an individual or group of individuals and are temporary in nature.

Medium-scale events that affect communities and are also temporary and devastating disasters that could have deep, prolonged effects over large portions of the United States, a continent or even the entire world.

Personal SHTF Events

Even if you don’t believe in the end of the world, you should still prep for the very likely events below. They affect most Americans every single day and I’m baffled as to why they’re not doing anything to get learn from their mistakes. Let me give you the list:

  • job loss
  • losing one’s home
  • car/bike/motorcycle/boating accidents
  • electric shocks
  • dog attacks
  • burglaries
  • pickpocketing
  • rape
  • …and assault.

Did you know there’re are around 300,000 sexual assaults each year in the US?

Did you know that over 2 million people are injured on US soil in car crashes? These numbers are more or less the same year by year, proof that people are unwilling to prep even when it’s clear the chances being affected by these SHTF events is non-negligible.

You don’t have to be a prepper to do the following:

  • have a first aid kit in your car as well as a few other emergency items (blankets, a good shovel, jumper cables etc.),
  • avoid walking alone at night,
  • having at least one way of protecting yourself in case you’re attacked: pepper spray, a folding knife, a gun and you can even take some self-defense lessons
  • …and strengthening your home to avoid unwanted visitors.

As for a job loss, that’s something no prepping article could teach you, but I will go ahead and say you have to up your financial knowledge and improve your skills to become better at what you do, get paid more. You’ll also want to expand your knowledge in other directions, you never know when you’ll be forced to switch fields.

Moving on, let’s see a list of the all medium-sized events you should look out for:

  • hurricanes
  • tornadoes
  • flash floods
  • earthquakes
  • ice storms
  • prolonged power outages
  • riots
  • avalanches
  • drought
  • landslides
  • …and state of emergency and localized Martial Law declarations.

Depending on where you live, you’re gonna wanna focus on the ones that are more likely to hit. I’m not trying to say you should never considered the possibility of a hurricane, for example, but let’s not forget that the people of New Orleans were all caught off-guard by Katrina and many of them started prepping afterwards. Others still didn’t learn their lesson…

You shouldn’t wait until you’re actually hit by a disaster to actually do something and, in all fairness, prepping for this second category of events is not trivial. You’re gonna need a food and water stockpile to last you at least a week, some emergency planning, a bug out bag with a few essentials and even a family survival plan.

Last but not least, we’re left with the list of national or global catastrophic events that can leave deep scars on our society and our planet. These require you to prep not just for a few days or weeks, but moths or even years. You may have to adjust your lifestyle or even move away from the city to a place that’s quieter and less exposed to all these threats.

The list of critical events with long-term consequences:

  • total martial law
  • the Yellowstone super-volcano eruption (it can cover 2 thirds of the US with ash)
  • pandemics
  • a national or global economic collapse (we can all see the stock markets are still on shaky ground)
  • and EMO disaster (whether it’s triggered by man or by the Sun, it can be devastating)
  • large tsunamis
  • viruses such as Ebola
  • asteroids (though I wouldn’t be too worried about them at this point)
  • the mega-drought that right now is affecting the Southwest, particularly California right now and threatening to expand. According to National Geographic, most of the US will be affected by it between 2050 and 2100.

Which ones should you prep for first?

The first category, of course, that’s why I’ve grouped them like this. The starting points should be you, your location and your lifestyle.

Do you have to walk alone through dark alleys every night as you come home from work? Then personal security when you’re away from home should be top priority.

Are there signs that you won’t be able to be at your current job for much longer? Then forget Doomsday and focus on finding a new job and improving your skills. If you’re switching fields, by the way, you may want to consider doing something related to survival and the outdoors, this way your job will help you become a better prepper.

Honestly I don’t know your current situation but I do hope that this article cleared two things for you: the list of disasters that are most likely to affect you and the order in which you should prep for them.

Good luck and stay safe!

Meet the Author

'Mountain Man' John

'Mountain Man' John is a Survival and Preparedness enthusiast who loves everything outdoors. He has a passion for learning anything and everything to help sustain his and his families way of life post SHTF. He frequently shares his knowledge on a variety of topics from his hands on DIY projects, learning new skills such as hunting and trapping along with reviews on his Survival related purchases - Prepping has been in his family for generations, it's in his blood.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Jesse Cisneros Oct 30, 2015, 12:12 pm

    Very informative article. I will be forwarding to all my family members.

  • James Burnette Jan 26, 2016, 1:58 am

    Great down to earth post. I know it’s easy to get caught up in the total collapse type scenarios. Which we may or may not ever see. You nailed it with job loss and car accidents. I’ve seen job loss and had it happen to me. I’ve seen plenty of car crashes in my life too.

    What I love about a solid prepping plan is that you are set for the things that are likely to occur and much better off for the unlikely.

    • 'Mountain Man' John Jan 28, 2016, 8:35 am

      Totally agree James, being prepared for the “real life” potential disasters should be everyone’s first step…from there you can move into any other area that you believe could potentially affect you, which will depend on your beliefs, location, age, medical conditions etc etc

  • vocalpatriot Dec 8, 2016, 3:36 am

    mega drought, my ass. I live in southern Az. …yep in the desert!!! i get rained on all the time. there is NO drought here. The U.S. government however is about to commandeer all water resources in the area. this has nothing to do with drought..people the planet is covered in water… there is no shortage..it is the second most plentiful thing we have..next to air. stop believing the moronic stories the elitists keep bombarding us with…if we took all the mountain tops down and filled in the deepest valleys and made the earth a perfect ball, we’d all be standing in three feet of water…no more bullshit folks wake up and smell the coffee!!!!!!!