I mean that two ways. (1) Don’t rely on frozen food for an emergency, because (2) there may be no freezers working.

In a serious emergency and practically every disaster situation, electrical power goes out. It can stay out for weeks. Or longer. We’ve seen it happen this winter in various locations around the country as power lines are taken out by trees that have been simply weighted down by snow and ice.

There are factors that can make food in a freezer last a while with the power off. It may be winter outside, and all you have to do to keep the food sub-zero is take the freezer outside. But that isn’t possible in most places. The other possibility is to have an alternate source of power to generate electricity. If you have something like a wind power generator, or a real solar setup that gives you lots of juice, you’ve got it made in the shade… if you want to divert that much of your precious auxiliary power to a freezer. As far as having a gas-powered generator, unless you live next to a gasoline cracking plant, you’re going to run out sooner or later. Probably sooner.
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All uncooked grains have an intrinsic problem that appears over time. There are insect eggs that are in the product which eventually hatch in the package. This is not from carelessness on the part of the companies that pack the food. It is just a fact of life.

It is true of all uncooked grain products: cereal, rice, all pasta including spaghetti, oatmeal, flour… you name it. Over time there will be tiny insects in the unopened, carefully stored package. It is not your fault. It is not anyone’s fault. We just have to deal with it.
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Whether you store food from the grocery store or buy pre-packed emergency food, you need to check expiration dates as time goes on.

The essence of emergency food is that you need to keep it in storage, because you never know when you will need it. Which means that most of the time you will not need it (although you’ll feel awfully good about it when the time comes). Some prepackaged emergency food is intended for very long storage, up to 25 years. You do not have to check that type very often, lol. But some emergency food has a shelf life of perhaps five years, and some only a year or two. If you mix types or buy quantities at different times, you need to schedule checks every month or two.
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We have always had as our featured supplier of survival food an extremely reputable company called Nitro-Pak, which has been around for over twenty years, has a 120-day guarantee, and has, in my personal opinion, the widest and best selection of survival food for an emergency or just about any disaster scenario.

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Congratulations to the National Bank of Commerce of Berkeley, Illinois. They are the first bank to fail in 2009, shuttered by the FDIC on Friday, January 16.

Apparently we’ve had a real ‘bank holiday’ since the beginning of the year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Company took a vacation from shuttering banks for the first two Fridays of the month. You see, that is their day to close banks. Friday. So far they have put the final touches on 26 banks since the start of the current crisis.

That’s right. 26 banks have failed. That is not widely reported, is it? The headlines are full of the bank bailouts to the glamorous stars like Bank of America, which is currently in need of, and receiving, more billions just to keep their doors open. And pretty much everyone agrees it will take more bailout money in the future. It is like the gambler at the blackjack table, losing one bet and then doubling down to get their money back. Except they keep losing. That’s us, or rather that is our government acting for us.

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They’re still talking about this in the media from time to time… the thing that happened on so-called Black Friday, where the sales associate was killed by a rampaging mob of shoppers.

The guy was 6-foot-5 and 270 lbs., and yeah, he had no training at crowd control, but that is still quite a large person to be swept under the feet of stampeding consumers.

This was for a sale. No emergency, no life-threatening disaster was happening. Just the chance of saving a few dollars on items that have little or no impact on a person’s survival.

Imagine what it would be like if a situation were to occur where people thought they needed to buy food right now or they would starve.
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I was in our nearest Wal-Mart a couple of days ago, and it was odd. The shelves were not fully stocked. In particular, there was not much rice, and in the automotive dept., there was only one container of Sta-Bil, an additive that  you mix with gasoline to store it for a year or more. There were also other gaps here and there. Nothing terribly important. Just a bit surprising.

I mentioned this to my wife, and she said the store where we get most of our food also had gaps on the shelves.

You know that on our home page I talk about the ‘just in time ordering‘ that most stores do now, to decrease their inventory costs. The things I’m seeing after the holiday season make me wonder if they are starting to be even more frugal about inventory. It would make sense, in our increasing fragile economy. The less inventory, the less credit needed and the more profits. Yes, it makes sense for them.

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The moon also rises in the East.
The moon also sets in the West

Stand with your right hand pointing to where the moon rises, and your left hand to where the moon sets.
You are facing approximately North.
South is in back of you.

Now you can find North day or night.

Except… what if you’re in a place you’re not familiar with, and you can’t determine where the moon rises or sets, because there is no moon that night?

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Who here is planning to rely on the GPS in their car for directions on how to get to places, if things go seriously south?

Okay, that may be kind of funny on the face of it. But if there is a general emergency, the chances are high that the GPS system, if still in orbit, will be reserved for ‘non-public’ uses. And I’m wondering if many cars will be running for very long.

So back to maps and compasses. Except who knows how to use either of those any more?
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