Watch the news on any given day and you’ll see plenty of reasons to worry about the future. With wars, violence, pandemics, natural disasters, and the constant threat of economic collapse, it’s hard not to feel anxious about your safety and security.
But if you're prepared, you’ll have no need to fear when disasters happen. With the One Year Urban Survival Plan, you’ll learn how to get ready for all sorts of situations including:
- Evacuating during an emergency such as a flood, wildfire, hurricane, or hazardous materials accident.
- Handling a power or water outage that lasts days or weeks.
- Staying comfortable and safe during a quarantine.
- Being prepared for a terrorist attack—whether cyber, chemical, or biological.
- Having what you need to be comfortable during a period of long-term unemployment or economic collapse.
You never know when an emergency or hardship will strike, but you can be sure that at some point in your life, you’ll have to deal with one. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can still have peace of mind if you're adequately prepared.
3 Areas of Preparedness
There are three areas of preparedness that you need to cover if you want to be prepared for any disaster, and you’ll be working on each of them a little bit every month. Once you’ve taken care of them, you’ll sleep better at night. They are:
- 72-Hour Kit / Bug Out Bag
- Food and Water
- Skills and Supplies
Every month, there will be three checklists of things to do, one for each of these three areas. Try to complete as much of the checklists as you can before moving on to the next month.
Note: Originally, I was going to put skills and supplies in separate sections, but I realized that so many skills depend on having certain supplies that it makes more sense to combine them. I believe this approach is much more streamlined.
Before starting the first month, lets take a look at each of these three areas…
72-Hour Kit / Bug Out Bag
Disaster preparedness organizations such as FEMA and the Red Cross recommend creating a 72-hour emergency kit. The idea is to have enough supplies to last 72 hours, which is 3 days. Why 3 days? Because that's usually how long it takes them to get supplies to people in disaster areas.
Oftentimes, people put their 72-hour emergency kit into a backpack. This is called a “bug out bag”. And again, 3 days of supplies is ideal because you can usually get to a safe location, such as a shelter or relative's home, in that amount of time. It's a good idea to keep your bug out bag near the door so you can evacuate in a hurry.
In month 1, you'll create a basic 72-hour kit. And in the months after that, you'll gradually put together a bug out bag that you can use to survive through any 3-day emergency.
Once that's done, you'll want to check your 72-hour kit and bug out bag every month and rotate out any food or medical items that are about to expire. The last thing you want during an emergency is a bunch of expired foods and medications.
Note: In this guide, I list everything you need for one bug out bag, but I highly recommend creating a separate bag for each member of your group or family.
Food and Water
While many emergencies are short-term, there are times when you need to have more than just a three-day supply of food and water. It’s possible that in a major disaster, it could be weeks or even months before you can get the things you need for yourself and your family.
Think about the last blizzard, hurricane, earthquake, or major power outage you had in your area. The first thing that happens is the grocery stores get cleaned out, and that’s only for a short-term emergency. In a long-term emergency, just about every type of store will be empty. You don’t want to be fighting people over limited food and supplies when an emergency hits.
And there are plenty of other long-term problems that might make a large supply of food helpful. For example, you might get laid off from your job and have to live without an income for a long time.
Serious illness or injury can also cause you to lose your income. For most people, this type of loss would be devastating; but if you have a large supply of food, it will be much easier. Knowing your family will be fed takes a huge burden off your shoulders.
In the coming months, you'll work on building a three-month supply of food, and you'll gather all the implements you need to cook during a power outage. Every month, you'll stockpile 8 days of food and 2 days of water. By the end of the year, you'll have about 3 months of food and 3 weeks of water. (Why less water? Because it takes up so much space. We'll talk about this in Month 2.)
I've also included an appendix full of recipes you can try. They're all recipes you can make over a fire or camp stove, and they all use shelf-stable ingredients. If you like a recipe, write it down somewhere and get the ingredients for it. If you don't like the recipe, that's okay too. The point is to try meals that don't require any fresh or refrigerated ingredients until you find several that you like.
By the end of the year, you'll have three months of food, including everything you need to make breakfast, lunch, and a hearty dinner every day. Imagine the security you’ll feel when you know that regardless of what happens, you can feed your family for three months without having to purchase a single thing.
Skills and Supplies
Each month, you're going to learn a new survival skill. Don't worry, you don't need to get to the point where you can survive in the wilderness with nothing but a knife like Les Stroud (star of Survivorman). You just need a few simple skills that will help you thrive during hard times.
Many new preppers tend to neglect survival skills and focus more on gear and supplies. After all, it's a lot easier to stockpile supplies than to take time every day to practice a basic skill that you might not ever need. Plus, most people don't have time to rub sticks together when there's a long list of chores to take care of.
Still, it's important that you learn at least a few basic skills. Having food and supplies doesn't guarantee your survival. What if your food is destroyed in a disaster? What if it's confiscated by the government? What if you have to abandon your home? Having a few basic survival skills will make you far more resilient.
Just setting aside a half hour per day can make a huge difference. If you do that, then by the end of the year, you'll have spent over 180 hours practicing basic survival skills. You still won't be an expert, but you'll be far more capable of surviving an emergency.
In the coming months, you'll practice skills like first aid, gardening, self defense, tying knots, building a fire, cooking without power, off-grid communication, creating herbal remedies, foraging for wild edibles, and more.
However, I'm not going to cover everything there is to know about these skills. Each one could easily fill its own book. Instead, I'll lay the foundation for you and provide links to resources where you can dig deeper.
In addition to learning survival skills, you'll also be gathering emergency supplies. By the end of the year, you'll have everything you need to function and stay safe during a long-term emergency.
When disaster strikes: How will you communicate with your friends and family? How will you protect yourself if someone tries to break in? How will you stay clean and healthy without running water? How will you stay cool in the summer or warm in the winter? How will you repair your home if windows are broken or the roof is damaged? What if someone gets hurt but the hospitals are completely overwhelmed or closed?
There are so many conveniences we take for granted in the modern world—electricity, running water, communication, healthcare, police—and these conveniences are so ingrained in our way of life that we rarely think about what would happen if they were suddenly gone.
It can be scary to think about just how fragile our society is, but the goal of the One Year Survival Plan is to change your life from fragile to durable.
Talk To Your Family and/or Friends
By the way, it’s a good idea to have a family meeting about why you’re preparing and what your goals are. I realize this can be difficult. Thanks to the media, preppers tend to have a bad reputation, so it's possible that people in your family will accuse you of being crazy or paranoid or a conspiracy theorist.
That's fine. They don't have to understand. Just tell them that you want to be prepared in case of a flood, earthquake, wildfire, or whatever disaster is most likely in your area. Give them examples of what happened to people who weren't prepared, like all the people who died during hurricane Katrina.
You could also describe preparedness as a form of insurance. Even though most people never use their homeowner's insurance, everyone agrees that it's a good idea to have it. Tell your family that while a major disaster is unlikely, you want to be prepared anyway as a form of insurance. Oftentimes when you explain it this way, people are much more receptive.
Do your best to get your family and close friends on board. However, be careful who you talk to. If a major disaster happens, you don't want everyone in your neighborhood to know you have months of food and supplies. Instead, let the people you talk to think that you only have a few days of food and supplies. This way, you can encourage them to prep as well without drawing too much negative attention.
You could also try to find a local preparedness group through Facebook or MeetUp.com. Discussing your goals with other preppers can help you stay focused and motivated. However, be cautious about sharing where you live and how much you have. While they are very rare, there are some preppers who plan on stealing from others when the shit hits the fan.
Personalizing Your Prepping Plan
Throughout this plan, I focus on information that will be useful to any prepper, no matter who they are or where they live. However, everyone is different, which means everyone's survival plan will be slightly different from everyone else's. Here are a couple of things to consider when preparing for a disaster.
Location
It's crucial to take your location into account when preparing for a potential disaster. For example, if you live in an area prone to flooding, you could get some life jackets and an inflatable raft. If you live in an area prone to wildfires, you could get some respirators and fire-resistant blankets. If you live in an area prone to tornadoes, you could work on building a storm shelter.
The One Year Urban Survival Plan will prepare you for the vast majority of disasters, but you still need to familiarize yourself with your area and determine the risk of earthquakes, landslides, blizzards, and other natural disasters.
Also take man-made disasters into account. If you live near a nuclear power plant or a railroad often used by trains carrying hazardous materials, you'll want to stock up on NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) gear.
Special Health Needs
You'll also want to take any special health needs into account. If you or someone in your family has a specific health condition or impaired mobility, prepare accordingly. Stock up on any extra medications or supplies you might need. If you rely on equipment that requires electricity, make sure you have a portable generator and plenty of gas, or even a solar generator.
Also, talk to your family and friends about how you'll take care of that person during a disaster. Designate someone who's in charge of getting the medications, or someone who's in charge of loading the wheel chair, oxygen tanks, etc. in the car. Make a plan ahead of time, and rehearse it.
Do You Feel Overwhelmed?
One major obstacle that keeps people from preparing for disaster is the feeling of being overwhelmed. There are so many things to learn and so many supplies to gather—where do you even begin?
It might seem easier to just put it on the back burner and think about it later, but when an emergency comes, it will be too late. This guide makes the process of getting prepared much more manageable by having you do a little bit each month.
Every step you take will be an improvement over where you were before. And after you’ve taken enough baby steps, you’ll suddenly realize you’ve reached your goals.
The other problem that people face is financial. For most people, it’s not possible to purchase everything they need all at once. By getting a little bit every month, it's much more doable.
It's even better if you can get friends and/or family members on board. For example, one person could buy the portable generator, another could focus on the first aid items, another could focus on tools and supplies for home repair, and so forth. You could even look at this as a plan for a group rather than a plan for one person or family.
If it's still too difficult, remember this: There's no rule that says you have to finish this plan in one year. If you want, you could stretch it out to two or even three years. I know some of you will be anxious to finish the entire plan as quickly as possible. Maybe you're afraid you won't have peace of mind until you finish month 12, but that's not true.
Once you've gotten through the first two months of this plan, you'll have a 72-hour kit, 3 days of water, 9 days of food, and some basic emergency supplies. That means you'll already be better off than 99% of people, so just relax. You don't have to rush through this plan at breakneck speed.
Oftentimes, when people push themselves too hard, they get overwhelmed and give up. The point of the One Year Urban Survival Plan is to create a sustainable plan that is easy to stick with.
And remember, not everything in this plan is something you absolutely have to do. Some of the things we'll talk about, such as learning to tie various knots or learning how to forage for wild edibles, are optional. They're great skills to have, but you can save them for later if you want.
The same goes for supplies. For example, in Month 4 I'll explain how to put together the ultimate first aid kit, but you don't have to get every single item. Even a small, basic first aid kit will be enough to prepare you for all the most common injuries.
Don't let the feeling of being overwhelmed prevent you from starting your preparedness journey.
Just Get Started!
The sooner you get started, the better. Even if it takes several years to finish this plan, that's okay. It could be several years before a major disaster hits your area. But of course, the longer you take to get started, the more likely you won't be prepared when a disaster finally strikes. So just get started!
Note: Throughout this plan, I placed links to articles on UrbanSurvivalSite.com and other helpful resources. I've also linked to several products on Amazon.com. Most of these are products I have tried and like, but they are only suggestions. If you can find a superior or more affordable product, you should go with that.
Next: Month 1 | Return to: Table of Contents
