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Convenient Precautions

***Please note*** if nothing happens, which is certainly possible, these precautions are barely inconvenient. I am just saying if there is ever a time to be a little more prepared, now is the time.

  • When: starting between 30 November 2025 – 2 January 2026.
  • What: long-term infrastructure outage like in the movie Leave the World Behind, lasting more than a week or two. No cell phones, gasoline, water, food, flights, etc.
  • Where: continental US, Canada, possibly Alaska, possibly Western Europe

What To Do

With minimal effort, you can improve your situation a LOT with the following:

  • Act early. If cell phones go down, get home right away. Don’t assume service will return quickly.
  • A pre-agreed-upon plan of where to go and how to get there without cell phones.
  • Water supply and a plan to filter and sanitize water.
  • Food supply.
  • Some basic communication, like simple radios.

Basics to Buy, Less Than $200 Total

  • Sawyer filter for water filtering.
  • Clorox bleach and glass droppers for water sanitation.
  • Large bags of dry rice.
  • Olive oil. Peanut butter.
  • Anything non-perishable you already normally eat that lasts a year or so without going bad. Be sure to have an extra full pantry. (nothing happens, no problem you have some extra)
  • Common Radios with USB car charger.

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 meet-up location (usually home, nothing special, just be specific).
  • 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

Under normal circumstances, if any of these events were to happen, we would assume an isolated incident and wait for it to pass, possibly watch on TV or follow the news somehow. This December I would expect something longer-term and take action to get home:

  • If communications go down.
  • If there is any major physical attack (act of war) anywhere in the US or Europe from one of the major world powers like Russia or China or from an unknown origin but big enough that a major power is suspected.
  • Cyber attack causing anything physical to happen like a plane crash or boat crash, especially multiple of them.
  • Common sense, anything obviously bad enough to threaten infrastructure.

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

If preparing for December, 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.

Other

  • Candles
  • Hearing protection just because of the noise in the movie.

Suggested Movie

Watch the movie “Leave the World Behind” and pay attention to what it would really be like to be in that situation. Remember we don’t see beyond the point where water and food run out. Notice especially the inability to coordinate plans and navigate without cell phones. Being separated or lost could be a big problem especially if you happen to be in an unfamiliar place. The movie was produced by Barack Obama, with his input as a former president. It has potential as both predictive programming and an idea of modern psychological warfare.

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.