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Preparation Basics

Update 13 October 2026

The situation has continued to escalate into what is now a major global conflict. In January 2026, I said this would escalate, and now knowing what has happened, I was right about that.

From here, It could fizzle out with peaceful resolutions, or the US quickly winning the war with Iran, but I do not believe it will. I believe Iran will fulfill its many-times-repeated threat to strike back – both the US and Israel.

Although I still believe a nuclear bomb will be used, I believe infrastructure outage is the biggest threat, not nuclear. Nuclear would take out infrastructure for a while anyway, and there’s not much we can do about a nuke if we don’t know where it’s gonna hit. I would avoid LA and San Diego, but if you live there I can understand staying.

Convenient Precautions While Things Are Still Normal
  • Bags packed for local survival and know your destination.
  • Enough gas to get to destination.
  • Bags packed for international travel.
If Infrastructure Outage, Especially No Communication
  • Act early. If cell phones go down, get to your safe place right away. Don’t assume service will return quickly.
  • Find your children and keep them physically with you until communication is restored with the outside world. I would not even go with anybody who could potentially separate me from my children.
  • Get distance from population centers near a source of water.
  • Be able to filter and sanitize water.
  • Enough food for 2-3 months.
  • Candles.
  • Ear plugs for any loud noises (psy-op type noises I mean).
  • I would not trust help offered until I could communicate normally with the outside world again. I would be suspicious of what goes on in the dark of an infrastructure outage. Do not trust instructions coming from a phone that does not communicate externally with people you know. For example: “ALERT: ASSEMBLE AT THIS MEETING POINT” on a phone that doesn’t communicate on the global internet is an instruction coming from a power that controls your phone and doesn’t want you to communicate with the outside world. If the network can tell you to assemble, it can allow you to communicate.
If Full-Scale World War
  • Do not waste time wondering if it will affect your area. Convenience is gone anyway, so take action.
  • Decide if you’re going to travel internationally, if international travel is possible.
  • Decide if you’re going to your planned location.
  • Buy all the gas you can.
  • Full-time prepare for infrastructure outage and make decisions.

Basics to Buy, Less Than $250 Total

Pre-Trigger Communication and Travel Protocols

The following measures can be maintained for a month without disrupting normal life if nothing happens.

  • Know where all family members are at all times.
  • Have an agreed-upon safe meet-up location.
  • Avoid large cities for 2 reasons:
  • 1. more people means less water and food per person.
  • 2. Cities are targets for nuclear attack.
  • If communication goes down (cell phones and internet), proceed immediately home (or to meet-up location). Don’t wait very long for communications to return to operational like we would normally do.

“Trigger” Events

  • Nuclear bomb dropped anywhere in the world.
  • If communications go down.
  • Cyber attack causing multiple of any catastrophe like plane crashes or boat crashes.
  • Common sense, anything obviously bad enough to threaten infrastructure, full-scale world war.

Water

  • Fill up bath tub with water and any other large containers available.
  • Rule of thumb water quantity requirement is ~1 gallon per person per day, which is quite a lot of water and does not include bathing.
  • In general, filters are good for large contaminants while disinfectant is good for small contaminants. Both filtration and sanitation are necessary for safe water.
  • The Sawyer filter was recommended to me and notice it can filter up to 100,000 gallons of water. Don’t let it freeze. If you don’t have a dedicated filter, a paper towel is better than nothing.
  • Disinfect water with Clorox bleach using 8 drops of unscented bleach per gallon of water. Notice this is a very low ratio of bleach to water, less than 1 part bleach per 5,000 parts water. So, a gallon of bleach can disinfect over 5,000 gallons of water. Glass droppers are useful for measuring disinfectant.
  • Remember if you have well water, you typically need electricity for the pump to work, so use the pump while you can to get usable water up.
  • Remember water is heavy, so you are unlikely be able to carry enough water to survive on for very long. Water is not portable long-term. You need to have a source.
  • If you boil water, rolling boil for 1 minute is sufficient.

Food

You don’t need to buy expensive food that lasts decades. You can really just have an unusually full pantry of non-perishable food that you can eat whether something happens or not. The following can last a year or two and you can eat it normally if nothing happens.

  • Bags of dry rice.
  • Olive oil lasts a year or two and contains a lot of calories.
  • Beans.

Radios

Radios are useful only if somebody else is communicating on the other end, so best to get common radios that are cheap enough to have 2 of.

Without a ham radio rig, you won’t be able to transmit more than a mile or so. However, would be nice to have receivers to hear transmissions. Receiving requires a lot less battery than transmitting.

  • This is the most common radio on Amazon currently. I picked a version with a scanner.
  • This is the most common type of CB radio. I selected the option with an antenna and 15-foot cable because your transmission range is largely dependent on antenna size and height. You don’t have to set up the antenna ahead of time. If something happens there will be plenty of time for antenna set-up.
  • If the power is out, car batteries will probably still work for a while, at least to power a CB radio or charge USB-charged radios. Would be nice to have one or two USB car chargers available to be able to charge without having the car turned on wasting electricity or gas. If your car doesn’t have accessory mode, you can connect the positive terminal to the point and negative terminal to the side of the cigarette lighter connector to charge directly from the car battery.
  • Plan to attempt communication at the most recognizable natural events: sunrise and sunset.

Summary

Just in writing this I feel a better about my family’s preparedness. I hope it helps – but mostly I hope it is not needed.

Post History

This post was called “Convenient Precautions” 21 Oct – 26 Nov, then “Take Some Action” 27 Nov – 28 Dec. Now, 29 December I would try to stay near where I want to be for an infrastructure outage from a nuclear war. 13 October 2026: v2 as another update in preparation.