Every once in a while, we hear a bunch of rumbling on the news about a possible pandemic outbreak or a chemical attack like sarin gas or anthrax.  Sometimes the news talks about nuclear reactors having problems – like yesterday in San Diego.  These are real threats that could happen because of accidents, terrorism or simply an attack on us by another country.  What are you doing to be prepared for this possibility?   Most importantly, do you even know what you should be doing?

If you’ve already looked into prepping for these threats, you’ve likely discovered that there’s not a lot of straight forward and clear answers to questions.

Want to get some REAL information on Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Preps?  Have you tried to decide which gas mask you should be purchasing for your family?  Or wondered if you need to get other protective gear for potential quarantine and survival of a serious pandemic outbreak?

So have we!

We think we know a lot of the answers to these questions – but we decided to get it RIGHT!  So, we’ve arranged for Robert Goepp, a career Hazmat expert and instructor, to join us on the show.  Robert has done Hazmat work in the Military, for the Fire Dept, and for DHS and probably a few other places he can’t tell us about.   You can read a lot more about him here.

Come join us LIVE TONIGHT and ask him any and all questions you may have regarding Hazmat and NBC Preps!

During the PLC show, you can follow this link and participate in the live chat – and ask questions during the show.  You can also call us live and talk directly to Robert.

You won’t want to miss this one!  It’s not always easy to get a true expert in this area to talk to you.

Friday, February 3rd 2012, at 6 pm MST (tonight) the Preparedness Learning Center Podcast/Radio Show broadcasting LIVE with Robert Goepp of Midwest Safety Associates.

Yesterday

There is a lot of good information out there about Pandemic Preparedness.  We’ve written several carefully researched articles about Pandemic Preparedness and in order to make them more convenient to our readers, we’ve put together a glossary to try to make finding that information easier.  If you know of any pages that have a lot of valuable information on H1N1 (Swine Flu), Pandemic Preparedness or Quarantines, please leave us a link so we can add it to our list.

Utah Prepper’s Posts

• Background Information on the Swine Flu and Preparedness basics
• A basic breakdown of different filtration masks
• Building a ‘Pandemic Go Kit’ for your Vehicle and EDC
• How to make your own Hand Sanitizer
• Quarantine Prep – Building a Pandemic Quarantine Kit to keep in your vehicle or at home and Detailed Information on Masks
• Avoiding Cabin Fever during Quarantine and other Quarantine Preparedness issues
• The wisdom of prepping NOW for Pandemic and Quarantine

Good links outside of Utah Preppers:

• WHO H1N1 Pandemic Information Page
• CDC H1N1 Information Page (including outbreak counts for U.S.)
• Utah Epidemiology H1N1 Page
• U.S. Government H1N1 Page
• KSL.com stories on Swine Flu

The main thing to keep in mind about Pandemic Preparedness is that it’s all about getting to an isolated location safely where you can quarantine yourself – IF it gets that bad.  Right now H1N1 (Swine flu) really is running pretty rampant and it’s only going to get exponentially more common.  It has already affected several groups here in Utah including The MTC, EFY, BSA Camps and several families.

The main thing we want to emphasize here is Be Smart, Prepare, and Don’t Panic!

Hopefully everyone has taken this opportunity to do just that – consider the possible worst situation, review your preps and fill holes.  Whatever the truth of the situation is, we can all know for ourselves if we were ready and, if you weren’t, if you are ready now!  Have you taken the time in the last week to consider just what Pandemic Preparedness means for you?  We’ve presented a couple scenarios here on the site and offered some ideas for Pandemic Preps.  Hopefully they’ve been helpful.  Now I would like to explore deeper down the Preparedness Rabbit Hole with you – and wander the quarantine branches of Pandemic Preparedness.

What EXACTLY is the point of Pandemic Preparedness?  What are we trying to protect ourselves from?  The simplest answer I can come up with is: We’re trying to NOT get ourselves or our family sick.  For each one of us this will mean something very different.  Our family make-up, our home, the location of our home, our work, kids in school, church responsibilities, etc.  I want to explain a bit about my status of all these things to put my prep ideas/plans in context.

Many of you know I have a 3 year old with Leukemia.  This means her immune system is compromised.  In her life we are actually already into a semi-quarantine; we practice social distancing, we are sensitive to germs, cleanliness, and sanitation.  She is comfortable and used to wearing an N95 mask, we are always wary when someone around us is sick, we rarely take her in very public places, we wipe down (sanitize) shopping carts before we put her in them.  Because of her situation, I have two primary goals in my Pandemic Preps.  1) Keep her from getting infected  and 2)Keep any family members from infecting her.  Here is the rest of my personal environment.  I live in a 2 story house, the basement is designed as a separate apartment; there is a kitchen, laundry room and 3 bedrooms down there, with a separate outside entrance.  I live in the country on 50 acres and there are very few people around us.  I have 8 children, 7 of whom live at home.

So, your plan will need to be tailored to your situation, but now you can understand mine and hopefully this post will give you some ideas for your quarantine plans.  The scenario I’m working with here is one of my kids (not Serenity, my Cancer Chic) getting sick or showing symptoms of being sick.  Isolation of the sick person from Serenity (and the rest of the kids so it doesn’t spread) is the objective here.

Quarantine Plan

The entire basement will immediately become the sick ward.  The air vents, doorways and the upstairs entrance to the basement  will be sealed off with 6 mil plastic to deter air flow.  The window to the sick room will be open to allow fresh air circulation.  I plan to get a UV Air filtration system to use in the basement as well.  The sick person will be confined to a bedroom while in the house and will be allowed to play outside in a designated area that the other children will not be allowed to go to.  The bathroom will become a decon room to dress and undress for entry into the sick rooms.  The basement laundry room will be the only place the sick person and caretakers laundry will be done.  All dishes used by the sick person will be washed in the sink downstairs.  The sick person will be required to wear an N95 mask anytime someone is in the room with them, anyone going into the room will need full protective gear on (more on that in a minute).  The sick rooms will be sanitized twice a day including changing and washing all linens on the bed.  All paper trash (kleenexes, etc) that is able will be burned in our fire pit daily.  All other trash will be collected into a garbage bags and disposed of twice daily.  To make this quarantine plan work requires several specific preps.

Sanitation Preparedness

In another post I discussed a couple methods of making your own sanitizer.  I also have a lot of cleaning supplies stored up as part of my regular preps.  You can see many of them in this picture.

When thinking about cleaning preps, be sure to consider that you’ll likely be cleaning several areas at least a couple times a day.  You should have enough cleaner stored to handle doing this for at least a couple weeks to a couple months.  Think about needing to sanitize all of the following more than once a day: floors, walls, linens, dishes, clothes, toys, toothbrushes, bodies, etc.

Pandemic Preparedness Gear

I previously posted about my personal and vehicle Pandemic Go-Kits and discussed the preps I’ve taken there.  This next kit is another Go-Kit but is meant for being able to take care of someone sick whether you’re at home or bugged out somewhere else.  Here is my Pandemic 72 hour kit:

From left to right, front to back, here are the contents:

• Front Row
  • Replacement razor blades
  • Sanitizer spray
  • Razor blade knife
  • Battery powered shaver
  • Flashlight
  • P95 replacement cartridges
• 2nd Row
  • Pack of 10 N95 masks with exhale valves
  • Industrial gloves
  • Shoe covers
  • Tyvex chemical suit with hood (2)
• Back Row
  • 3rd Tyvex Suit
  • Face Shield
  • P95 Respirator
  • Goggles
  • Lysol Disinfectant Wipes
  • Alcohol Wipes

The knife and flashlight are tools that can be left in the contaminated area and used easily with bulky gear on.  The shaver is to remove facial hair if needed so that masks can achieve a good face seal, it is specifically battery powered instead of electric/rechargeable in case power is not readily available.  N95 masks are for the patient disinfectant wipes and spray are for the reusable mask and other gear and for wiping up in the sick room.

Here’s what this very unflattering gear looks like on:

This gear setup isn’t perfect – or final for that matter – and much of it was bought this last week.  Yes, I was surprised to find that I was not properly prepared for a Pandemic but have made sure this week that I have the minimum of what I needed.

I plan to find and purchase several washable bio suits – I’m looking for ones with booties and a hood built into them.  This is very close to what I’m looking for.  Currently, the filters I have for my respirator are 95% (like N95) filters – meaning they miss 5%.  I’m planning on getting N100 filters to replace them.  I’ll be doing that in the next week or two.  The critical part for me is that I have the minimum preps required to implement my plan.

More Mask Information

I also want to pass on some further information I found this week.  By now we’ve all heard of N95 masks, what you may not have heard of yet are P95 and R95 masks.  With mask supplies acting like ammunition lately N95 masks have become rather scarce.  However, most hardware stores still have decent supplies in their painting and tool safety sections.  What you’ll find there though are N95, P95 and R95 masks.  When I first saw this I wasn’t sure what the other two were or if they would work for me.  What I found out about NIOSH ratings is this: N = Not resistant to oil, R = Resistant to oil, P = oil Proof.  The 95, 99 and 100 rating are the filtration levels.  The prefixed letter is the oil filtration rating.  What this means is that any Nx, Px, Rx rated mask will work for you as a pandemic filtration mask.  95% filters are good enough to get you home, but for in home care I want a 100% filter.  Here’s a pdf that explains all this.

Hopefully this post will give you some good ideas for considering your own pandemic quarantine preps.  Remember, the main thing to gain from the swine flu outbreak to this point is a good understanding of how well prepped you are for a Pandemic! Don’t miss Angela’s excellent post on avoiding Cabin Fever during quarantine!

Have you gained a new perspective on pandemic preps from the current outbreak?  Have you considered quarantine preparedness?

image from survivetheflu.com

With the Swine Flu news is coming talk of possible quarantines.

When I was a kid my family was quarantined by the county health department because my baby sister contracted whooping cough at less than a month old and more than one of the rest of us were carriers. We were pulled out of school in the middle of the day and escorted home.We were not supposed to leave or have anyone over. Homework got deposited in our milk box where we would retrieve it when the deliverer had gone. Thankfully there were medications we could take and the quarantine period was under a week—just until we weren’t contagious anymore. But what about a disease there is not medication for? How would that be dealt with? How long would a quarantine need to be in place to be effective? And what would you do with all that time isolated from society?

The Federal Government and most state and local governments have the authority to quarantine someone who they believe has a disease that could cause a public health hazard. These government-ordered quarantines can last hours or weeks until the quarantined individual is no longer believed to be a threat to the health of others. This doesn’t happen too often on the Federal level, the most recent case being Andrew Speaker who was quarantined in a hospital in Denver in 2007, thought to have a drug resistant strain of Tuberculosis.

In the case of a true pandemic, there will be too many affected individuals to quarantine them all in hospitals. Individuals will likely be requested to self-quarantine if someone in the household is sick. This means the whole household should stay home to make sure nobody else is infected and to keep the disease from spreading. The length of time you would need to be isolated depends on the incubation period and contagious stage length of the disease, and of course what is recommended by health care providers. A recent computer model for studying pandemic flu outbreaks in Georgia found that an 8 week quarantine period would be most effective in stopping the spread of the disease. A 4 week quarantine was as effective as closing schools for 6 weeks. So we’re probably looking at period of weeks rather than days.

You could also choose to “reverse quarantine” by isolating your healthy family before any of you are exposed to whatever disease is going around. How long you stay in your quarantine is up to you, but if an infected person is quarantined 8 weeks, you could easily need to stay isolated 3 months or more for the risk of infection to subside.

Obviously you will need to be able to meet your family’s food and basic sanitation needs during this extended period. Besides health and food supplies in your pandemic preparations, you might also think of “preparing” things you can do at home with your family if you all are stuck there with each other and nobody else for the duration of the quarantine. You might as well enjoy your time together (which to me means NOT sitting around watching the news). It will be especially important for children to have a sense of normalcy or even that it is a special time rather than the stressful time a pandemic or other extended disaster could be. So here’s a few suggestions for beating “cabin fever” during a quarantine.

Of course if the power’s on you can resort to video games, computer, TV, etc., but I’d use these sparingly—especially if news reports are disturbing. You’ll want to keep a positive atmosphere in your home.

Play board games or card games. There are even “junior” versions of classic games like Clue, Pictionary, and Scrabble for the younger ones. Here’s a huge resource for card game rules. Just make sure you have a couple of decks on hand.

Play charades, make music, draw, paint, or write something. Build a puzzle or two or ten. Read books or download audio books to listen to. Build a city out of legos. Sew, crochet, knit. Set up your tent and “camp” in your living room. Build a model. Work on books of crossword puzzles, word searches, etc. You get the idea. If noise increases your stress level, take that into consideration before planning to build paper plate and dry bean tambourines. ;)

Those of you in the country or more rural areas may be able to get out in the yard, so take advantage of outdoor games if you can.

If you’re in for an extended stay, maybe it’s time to take up that hobby you’ve always wanted to learn but never had time to—just make sure you have supplies on hand so you don’t have to go out in public. (Here’s me buying knitting needles and yarn and a book on how to knit.)

Educational supplies would be good to have on hand also so the kids’ brains don’t turn to mush

Daughter's emergency fun can

Have a few things tucked away that will be “new” when you need something new. A new coloring book, non hardening clay, colored pencils, a game, watercolor paints—think of things that could store for long periods before they get used. We’ve “canned” some fun items for each of our kids in an emergency can. We did this at a preparedness fair, but it could also be done by renting the canner from your local dry pack cannery or just using Ziploc bags or a box would also work. Stuff the can with fun non-perishable games or activities and seal it up. I honestly can’t remember what all is in them—I know I put crochet stuff in my girls’ cans and I think a puzzle, but I know that’s not all because the cans were full before they were sealed, so it will be new to all of us when they need to be opened.

You know who you’ll be quarantined with–brainstorm some age appropriate activities, make yourself a list, and make sure you’ve got the supplies on hand ahead of time for a variety of activities.

Most of these ideas can be used for any extended emergency situation, whether you’re quarantined or not. And if you don’t end up needing them for an emergency, you’ll have them for some lazy Saturday instead.

Why do it with household products?  There are a couple answers to this.  First, thriftiness kind of goes with prepping – or maybe it’s more like stretching our dollars since we spend SO MANY of them on preps!  By buying large quantities of the base products for sanitization we’re also getting the base products for several other important preps – namely medical.  If we get large quantities of the base stuff, we can put off determining their use based on our needs.  We can also save money this way – buying bulk amounts of hand sanitizer is more expensive than buying bulk amounts of the ingredients for it!  For some there is also a question of whether harsh additives have been added to their sanitizer that they do not want.  By making it ourselves, we can be sure of what is going into it.  Besides, prepping is all about self-reliance, right?!

Sanitizer Spray

You can kill most any germs, without leaving a dangerous residue, with a binary spray.  White Vinegar and 3% Hydrogen Peroxide both kill germs.  Simply fill one spray bottle with white vinegar and another with hydrogen peroxide.  Spray whatever you need sanitized with one, then with the other.  Individually these two kill large numbers of germs, combined they function as well as or better than commercial sanitizing spray.

NEVER NEVER mix them both into the same bottle though – this will create Peracetic Acid – which is useless to clean with, is corrosive, and can hurt you!

You could also fill a third bottle with bleach and zap something with all 3 of them if you wanted to be REALLY sure you had killed everything possible.  But the bleach will discolor things and is potentially harmful if ingested.

So, for sanitizer spray store:

• White Vinegar
• 3% Hydrogen Peroxide
• Unscented Bleach (if desired)

If you notice in that list, those items can be used for several other things as well!  Here are some links for further reading on this.

Hand Sanitizing Gel

This has been an interesting experiment and learning experience.  I set out a couple days ago to figure out how to make hand sanitizer at home.  With an immune fragile child in our home, we sanitize a LOT!  After doing copious amounts of research and extended experimentation last night, I believe I have found a reliable and effective way to make hand sanitizer at home.  First, some background:

To be effective, hand sanitizers MUST contain a minimum of 60% alcohol by concentration.  Alcohol kills germs by dessication, meaning that it dries them out through rapid evaporation.  A lower concentration of alcohol results in not having enough alcohol to rapidly evaporate and dry out the microbes on your hands.  There are many recipes on the internet that result in an over-dilluted mixture which will prove to be very ineffective at killing germs.  Here are two really good articles to read on this: One from the New York Times and one from the CDC.

The recipe and method we have come up with for Do-It-Yourself home-made hand sanitizing gel is as follows:

• 5 cups 91% Isopropyl Alcohol
• 2 cups 100% pure Aloe Gel

Notice that the ingredients for this are also useful for lots of other things?

This results in an alcohol concentration of roughly 63% (being more precise requires using tenths of a cup in measurement).  You can add essential oils as desired for scent.  There are some essential oils that add germ killing ability such as tea tree oil but I have no idea what the diluted effectiveness would be or what quantity you would need them in.

Making Hand Sanitizer Gel at Home

A Pictorial

Start by measuring out your Aloe into a mixing bowl.

Add in your alcohol

Mix at high speed – we found it works best to have a cute Cancer Chic run the mixer for you :)

Mix for several minutes, the solution will begin to gel

The aeration of the mixture is extremely important to getting the consistency correct.  You should she bubbles all throughout the mixture.

The end mixture is thicker than water, but not extremely thick.

Once you’ve gotten the mixture to gel and achieve a constant consistency, you can pour it into containers for storage and use.

So with a potential pandemic from the swine flu and the resulting potential quarantine, with the need to have sanitizer in your EDC, BOB and 72 Hour kits, make sure you have plenty of these base components stored so you can use them as needed!  I suggest storing the base components and using sanitization as a great way to rotate these items.  Peroxide, bleach and alcohol all have couple year shelf lives, using them as regular household cleaners is a great way to keep them fresh!  (Look for our upcoming post on lots more uses for vinegar and peroxide!)

“This has happened before, and it resolved itself just fine. There’s no reason to worry about this time, either.”

In the past couple days, I’ve seen this argument made in all sorts of variations, with people asserting that there have been other non-threatening flu virus strains in the past, as well as other pandemic threats. Despite the media hype, these non-events have faded into history with only a minuscule amount of death and injury. While I agree in part, I believe that there is a “boy who cried wolf” danger to simply ignoring current and future threats, all on the assumption that since previous ones did not escalate, that other ones will not as well.

As we know from the children’s story, the wolf eventually did come. I personally believe that there will one day be a deadly virus strain like the 1918 type that will have catastrophic effect. Whether that’s this current swine flu variation or not, I do not know.

What I do know is that we must be on guard at all times, just in case. If we assume that the boy is crying wolf again, and that all is well in America, then we risk putting ourselves in a compromising position if and when the real threat does escalate and affect us personally.

Whether or not this current swine flu threat escalates into a full-fledged pandemic does not affect what we can do to learn from the experience. As we learn from history, so too can we learn from what others are currently going through. If the Mexico City epidemic was happening in Utah, what would you do? How would you react? Would your family know the protocol to follow to ensure that you don’t get sick?

As long as these events don’t affect you personally, you can still take advantage of them to simulate conditions and ask yourself “what if”? Then, when the threat is real, you won’t be caught unawares, perpetually assuming that the boy is crying wolf yet again. We must not procrastinate our preparedness!

My previous posts about Pandemic/Swine Flu Preps are here and here.

I made one of the large kits for each vehicle and the smaller one for my daily carry bag.  They’re very simple and easy to throw together.  I wanted to demonstrate for you just how easy it will be to put one together for yourself.

In each one I have:

• 5 N95 masks (I have 5 so I have a couple to share with people I would rather not die, like the payroll dude).
• 25 Pairs of disposable vinyl gloves
• Alcohol based hand sanitizer
• In my EDC kit I also have alcohol based wipes to wipe off any surfaces I might need sanitary

That’s it. Most of this stuff is available at Wal-Mart or K-Mart.  Actually, all of it usually is but N95 masks are pretty much out of stock in Utah County.

As regular readers will know, I also carry plenty of other survival and prep stuff in my EDC (EveryDay Carry) bag.  I now just throw this small kit in there as well.

First, to masks.  I previously recommended that everyone have several N95 masks in their preps.  Having talked with several prepping experts today including a couple who sell masks, I have some additional recommendations for you.

N95 Masks

First, the consensus is still that N95 masks are completely satisfactory to have in your preps.  The main issues with N95 Masks are regarding donning the mask.  Several points were made to me about this today.  First, when you don the mask, you MUST make sure that there is a good seal of the mask to your face.  This usually means adjusting the nose bridge so that it fits properly on your face.  If you don’t have a good seal then the mask is useless to you.  Second, make SURE that your hands are clean and sanitized before you handle the mask.  If you have the virus on your hands and then touch the inside of your mask to put it on, you’re just putting the virus right in your airway.  Finally, and this is something we learned some time ago, for children – you can cut the bottom of the adult N95 mask off to custom fit it to your child’s face.  This is actually what my wife and I were taught to do by the Oncologists for our daughter with Leukemia.  You can order N95 masks from this link (or lots of other places as well).

N99 Masks

N99 masks are more expensive than N95 masks.  They do a slightly better job of killing viruses and (from what I’ve learned today) they tend to adjust and fit better on your face.  The picture above is of someone wearing an N99 mask.  You can order N99 masks from this link (or lots of other places as well).

Triosyn T-5000-V Respirator Mask

The Triosyn mask is a much more expensive solution but is a proactive approach.  They have an antimicrobial protection system built into them, are fluid resistant, have an activated carbon layer to filter out odors and a one way valve ventilation system.  The ventilation system makes it easier to wear for extended periods of time because it is much easier to exhale from.  It also has an inner seal along with two adjustable head straps and an adjustable nose piece.  It has about a 5 year shelf life and is good for 24 hours of use.  It is one of the only masks that actually kills viruses instead of just filtering them out.  You can order them through this link (or lots of other palces as well).

Panic Buying

The panic buying has already started.  Here in Utah, many stores are already out of them.  I went by a couple stores today and they were sold out, while I was at Wal-Mart looking 3 other people came to where I was looking for masks.  Many online vendors (including the ones I’ve talked to today)  are reporting that they have had a HUGE demand the last couple days and are sold out.  They also said that they fully expect to be re-stocked within the next 48 hours.  Masks are the new ammunition – they’re going to be pretty tough to find before too long!  With all the links above, I would do what I could to find out from a site whether they had masks in stock before I placed an order with them.

Masks in General

Let’s put all this in perspective.  What do you need masks for anyway?  There a only a couple COMMON times you’ll need them during a Pandemic:

• In Public
  • Anytime you are out in public during an actual pandemic/epidemic (which point we are NOT to yet!) you will want to be wearing a mask, eye protection and possibly gloves.  You’ll also want to be armed with sanitizing spray and wash.
• Initial Quarantine
  • If you start an in home quarantine then you will want everyone to wear masks and take serious protective precautions for the first 48 hours.  This is to identify whether anyone in the quarantine is already infected and is going to come down sick.  Once you’ve determined that nobody in the quarantine is a carrier you should be safe to un-mask but should still maintain very sanitary practices.
• Around someone sick
  • If you have to work around someone who is sick (i.e. a member of your quarintine contracts the virus – like your child) you will want to take multiple precautions.  Isolate the person in a seperate room, hang heavy plastic over the doorway to prevent active airflow, don protective gear including mask, goggle, gloves, apron, shoe covers anytime you must enter the room.

Again, these are the most common times you’ll need a mask.  If you live in an area that has had a breakout, I would wear a mask anytime I was out in public.  If you initiate a quarantine, once you’ve gone through the first 48 hours you should be fine in your home without a mask and even outside – as long as you are not near other people.  My perspective is kind of skewed since I live in the country – there are very few people here.  If I quarantine I fully expect I’ll be out working on my garden most of the time. :)

Generally speaking, little kids DO NOT like to wear masks!  (we have some personal experience with this) I would advise you to tell your kids that you’re going to teach them about some current events and some plans in case certain things happen.  Have them wear a mask while you’re talking, make it last about an hour.  Have a fantastic dessert for them if they keep their mask on.  Then do it for half an hour each day for the next five days.  By this point they won’t freak out about the mask, they won’t fight it quite as much.

Sanitizing

Anytime you’ve handled something that might have exposed your hands to the virus, you should vigorously scrub your hands – preferably with anti-bacterial soap.  You should be using an alcohol based sanitizer pretty much anytime you handle something that might have been exposed – door handles, paper, hand rails – anything someone might have sneezed on or touched after sneezing.  Again, this is only if you are in an at-risk situation like a breakout in your state.

Other ways you can sanitize are to get spritzer spray bottles and fill one with isopropyll alcohol and another with bleach.  Spraying things like door handles with either or both of these will kill most germs.

Utah status

Since we’re a Utah blog we’ll discuss the status of the outbreak in Utah.  As of now, Utah has not had any reported cases of the Swine Flu.   The state CDC directors and other government officials have met to review Utah’s action plan should cases be found here – here is an official statement from them.  They stress that currently Utah is in an “emergency PREPAREDNESS” stage, not an actual Emergency stage.  As of now, no schools have been closed or are planning to close.   They do advise the following though:

They’re asking people with respiratory symptoms to stay at home but to go to a doctor if they have the serious hallmarks of flu — like a fever, muscle aches, exhaustion, chills, sweats and headaches –not just a cold.
“Well, I think you have to use common sense. You know we’re subject to colds, to respiratory illnesses all the time. I think though, if I were running a fever, had muscle aches and felt unusually tired along with a respiratory illness, yeah, I’d go to the doctor,” Dr. Sundwall said.

World Status

As of right now in the U.S. NOBODY has died from the virus.  Many have come down with it but they’re being reported as “mild cases”.  However, as of right now 103 people have died in Mexico from the swine flu.

There is so much going on with this worldwide that any status would be outdated as soon as I posted it.  There are a few good resources to check out though. 

• Breaking News Online’s Twitter feed is a really good source of worldwide pandemic status.  I suggest following them if you use Twitter.
• The World Health Organization’s Disease Outbreak News
• You can also follow Healthmap for updates on swine flu outbreaks.  They also have a great map of where diseases have been reported.
• You can also follow Veratect, a lab monitoring the swine flu, on Twitter for early info.
• Whether you use twitter or not, you can track the #swineflu hashtag here – this will tell show you any tweets posted using #swineflu
• This interactive timeline map will give you an ongoing history tracking outbreaks of swine flu
• This Google Map shows where in the world outbreaks have been reported (zoom all the way out to see the world)
• First hand experiences of the swine flu from Mexico

Don’t Panic, Just Prepare!

There seems to be a lot of fear out there about this, the news seems to be feeding that fear.  The information in the last section of this post could be scary.  But we need not panic!  We’re Preppers, we look to things like this as stuff we thought might happen!  The purpose of this post is NOT to scare you.  It’s merely to help you get prepared for what might come.  We’re trying to provide you with information so that you don’t have to be scared.

The prudent thing to do right now is review your preps – make sure you’re ready for an extended stay at home.  If you have to self-quarantine at home, are you ready to be there for a while?  What if this virus mutates and turns into a pandemic?  Are you prepped for the grid to go down?  Are you prepped for other services to be interrupted?  Take inventory, make sure your 3 month supply is fully stocked.  Make sure you have fuel, food, water and pandemic preps.  Have a family action plan in case there is a breakout in your area.

Always, always remember: If you are prepared, you SHALL NOT FEAR!  As Preppers we’re ready for this – whether it happens or not.

See all of our Pandemic Preparedness / Swine Flu posts here.

With the current Swine Flu scare coming out of Mexico and popping up here and there in the United States, it is prudent to become familiar with the situation and especially prudent to review your Pandemic Preparedness Level.  I should also stress that this is a “DON’T PANIC, Just Prepare!” post.  So first, let’s get to know the player – what is the swine flu?  Well, it’s just a variant of the “flu” that makes the rounds and gets passed around every year.  Thing is, this variant doesn’t typically pass to humans so there is not an anti-virus in production or even made yet.  Don’t take it from me though, and don’t take it from the ‘news’.  Here are links to the CDC info and briefs on this situation:

• Swine Flu Brief
• Key facts about Swine Influenza
• Human Swine Influenza Investigation
• This is a vid-cast from the CDC about the swine flu outbreak

Some quick anti-panic notes from the above sources:

• Swine flu CANNOT be transmitted by food.  Eating pork does NOT put you at risk.
• This is NOT the first time the ‘swine flu’ has transmitted to humans.  It’s happened several times before without it becoming a pandemic.
• This variant of swine flu, as with any flu, is a virus and primarily spread person-to-person through coughing or sneezing.
• This is just a flu!  The key here is to NOT GET IT, since there is not currently an anti-viral for it.

Quick notes about prevention:

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.

• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.

• Try to avoid close contact with sick people. If you get sick with influenza, CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth because germs can spread that way.

Now, let’s talk a bit about Pandemic Preparedness.

We’ve linked to this before, here is an excellent resource on Pandemic Preparedness from the LDS Church.  In the case of a true Pandemic outbreak in your area, the most important thing is to be prepared to Shelter In.  This means having enough food/water/supplies to keep you and your family inside at your home for possibly several weeks.  You don’t want to be caught in a store-run in a pandemic outbreak!  You need to make sure you are prepared for that possibility ahead of time.  If you have your 3 month supply of everything at home already, then Peace is yours in this situation!

Other Pandemic specific things to make sure you have an excellent supply of:

N-95 Masks

These masks are different from regular dust masks or other types of masks.  They are rated to help stop the spread of viruses.  You should have enough in your preps to provide a new one to every member of your family every day for at least 2 weeks.  They can be purchased at most stores that include a pharmacy, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, WalGreens, etc.  Generally they are a little pricey but are necessary for your preps.

Medical Gloves

You should have several hundred pair of medical gloves in your preps.  These are needed if someone in your family gets sick and you have to self-quarantine.  Anytime you touch anything that a sick person has been around, you need to be wearing gloves.  You can buy these at the same places you buy N-95 masks.  They are a lot cheaper than the masks though.

Alcohol-based Hand Sanitizer

Even though you’re wearing gloves all the time, you should have lots of alcohol based sanitizers in your preps.  You should have them in your day bag, your go bag, your 72-hour kits and your regular preps.  You should also have lots of anti-bacterial soap as well.

Other Preps

To be prepared to take care of someone infected in your home, you should also have the following in your preps (these preps will be for the single person providing care for the sick person, you do not need to have enough of these supplies for everyone in the family to wear constantly):

• Disposable surgical gowns
• Disposable shoe covers
• Goggles or face shield
• Bleach (to clean surfaces and items touched by a sick person)
• Supplies to boil water (to sanitize dishes and other items used by sick person)

I can’t stress enough how important Pandemic Preparedness is.  The worst possible thing you could do in a Pandemic outbreak is rush to the store with thousands of potentially sick people and try to fight them all to buy supplies to shelter in.  The only rushing you want to do in a Pandemic situation is rush home – and stay there.

Make sure you have N-95 masks and hand sanitizer in your Day Bag, Office Kit, Car Kit, Go Bag and 72 Hour kits!  Keep a good supply of sanitizing materials in your preps at home and

Don’t Panic!

UPDATE: Follow-up post with more mask information here.

Random preparedness, which a lot of people I am acquainted with participate in, is a step up from non-preparedness but can be somewhat misleading, perhaps even dangerous. Wade talks about some of this in his inaugural post – you might have wheat stored, but do you know how to use it? If you have a flashlight, do you consider yourself prepped for darkness? What will you do when the batteries run out, do you have batteries stored? Do you just have one flashlight, or do you have one for each person in your family? How about two for each person in the family? Or a store of emergency candles to supplement the flashlights? Redundancy is very important! If you have candles stored to backup your flashlight, how will you light them? Do you have matches stored? What will you do if you run out of matches? Do you have flint and steel stored? This may seem like I have randomly picked flashlights, but with any item you pick it will almost always pare down to a “primitive” solution. Lighting leads down to flint and steel. Heat, both cooking and warming, leads down to flint and steel. Transportation leads down to pack animals and hand-made carts. And so on. Primitive or Pioneer skills are essential in a long term TEOTWAKI situation. This post isn’t to discuss primitive survival methods though, it’s to discuss navigating the Rabbit Hole.

The Preparedness Rabbit Hole can be a maddening thing! Once you start down it, you find there are endless branches, many of them intertwine and many of them go very deep and then head back near the surface only to empty into yet another branch. Let’s enter the Rabbit Hole through the Weapons entrance, whether for protection or for hunting. If you have no weapon preps or knowledge, your first thought will most likely be a gun, if you know nothing about guns this leads you to your first branch in the Rabbit Hole, and it’s right at the surface. You can learn about Handguns, Shotguns, Long-guns and Battle Rifles – and more if you’re inclined. In learning about these, you’ll learn about lines of defense and where each weapon is appropriate and for what, and when you need to rely on a different weapon. You’ll run back and forth between these branches for a while. Then you’ll settle on something, let’s say you settle on a Long-gun so you can hunt big game. Now you have to settle on a caliber, to keep this short, we’ll say you settle on a .30-06. Now you have to choose and purchase a weapon and learn about ammo – 180 grain bullets or 150? Ballistic Tips or Full Metal Jackets – and so on. OK, now you’ve bought your gun and a box of 50 180 grain BT cartridges.

Now the Rabbit Hole, which you thought you were near the end of, goes crazy. What will you do when you’ve shot all 50 of those cartridges you bought? Reload? You are now at the top of another tunnel, reloading – and you’re going to need a lot of supplies and some equipment. What if the only game you can find is small game – and a 30-06 would destroy it? What if you need personal protection? What if you can’t carry a rifle around because of how obvious it is? What if you’ve run out of bullets and reloading supplies? Can you make a bow and arrow out of raw materials? Can you make a sling? Do you know how to use either of them? Do you need a scope for your rifle? How strong of a scope do you need? Once you kill an animal, do you have the knives and equipment to gut and clean it? Do you know how? How will you get the animal out of the forest? Once home, how will you butcher it, both know-how and equipment? Once it’s butchered, how will you process and store it? Do you dry it? Do you freeze it, do you have a generator to keep your freezer running? Do you have gas to keep the geni running? Do you have a different alternative power source like solar or wind? The big one – do you have spare parts for the generator, freezer, rifle, reloader? Do you even know how to use spare parts (if you can get some by bartering) to fix any of those things? Do you feel the insanity of prepping beginning to slip in??? The Preppers Rabbit Hole is endless and maddening. Maybe that’s why they call us serious preppers crazy – cause in a way we can get there.

A LOT of effort has been made by a lot of people to map out the Rabbit Hole for us but unfortunately, there is no definitive map. If you’re a spiritual person and believe in personal inspiration you can turn to God for help and direction. If not, you can turn to books and more books and even more. Even if you’re the spiritual person, you still need to review books or other things so that God can direct and inspire you to what is important for you to investigate further. Many of us on this site as authors or readers have done some version of this approach and are willing and trying to share with others the maps that we have created of the Rabbit Hole. None of us have all the answers, each of us have thoughts, experiences and training of potential value to the others and together we have a lot of The Hole mapped.

Mapping the Rabbit Hole is Preparing for Preparedness. It’s studying, learning, practicing, experiencing, listening, reading, experimenting and so on. It’s good there is no complete map – in order to navigate The Hole you must “learn to fish”. By learning it for yourself you are able to make connections in the future from that experience that you wouldn’t have made otherwise. By studying prep topics you begin to see new things as common sense and gain an ability to puzzle things out for yourself. These experiences will likely be the most valuable thing to you in a TEOTWAKI situation – perhaps even more so than your preps themselves.

Prepping for Preparedness is something that becomes a lifestyle. Once you’re into it, if you stay into it, there is always a new top level Rabbit Hole to enter. This year I am peering into a few of them and considering diving in. I’m looking into Pandemic preparedness – which leads into all kinds of medical preparedness branches including knowledge, training and equipment. I’m also looking into leather work and how to make clothes from animal hides – which immediately branches into tanning hides and comes from hunting education. I’m looking to extend my growing season and trying to learn how early I can start plants indoors and the best techniques for it – which branches into different gardening equipment and requires different spaces than I’ve used. I also have plans this year to save up and buy 3 huge tents and 3 tent stoves from cylinderstoves.com.

With my intentions of getting into all these new areas and buying several new things, I have to study and communicate to learn the branches I can expect in these Rabbit Holes and start a mental map so I can navigate. I’m looking into medical suppliers, leather suppliers, gardening suppliers and reading several books, websites and manuals. I’m looking into classes I can take and other new areas where I can get experience. I plan to make several posts on these topics as I go, hopefully by the end of the year this site will be a good resource for these areas of preparedness.

What experiences have you had in the Rabbit Hole? Would you like to be a guest author and share them? Do you have some good experience in Prepping for Preparedness that you can share? Have you had experience in the areas I’m looking into that you would be willing to share, either in comments or as a guest author? Are you interested in learning these skills and maybe going through them with me? Let us know!