21st Century Survival Notes
Jan. 14th A.D. 2000
This is an update to past survival information by Elijah. We were glad to
see Y2K came in without all the doom and gloom that had been forecast.
We were never that concerned with Y2K. We are concerned with the
coming earth-changes, depression and famines. Thus, keep all your surplus
supplies.
The best two books on Survival at present are "Making the Best of Basics,
Family Preparedness Handbook", by James Talmage Stevens and "Nuclear
War Survival Skills", by Cresson H. Kearny. These two books are must
reading for anyone interested in survival in the 21st Century. These two
books are not optional reading, they are required reading before you can
call yourself a survivalist.
The above two books can be obtained from Nitro-Pak Preparedness Center
At: 1-800-866-4876 Nitro-Pak also has the water filters and lanterns we will
be talking about in this survival note. Lehman's Non-Electric Catalog also
sales these items At: 1-330-857-1111.
WATER FILTERING
In any survival scenario, the first order of the day is to secure good drinking
water.
Acquiring good drinking water will not be an easy project in the 21st
Century. In the 21st Century there will be great shortages of good drinking
water. The only way to be assured good drinking water is to filter your own
water. The Katadyn Tabletop Gravity Drip Filter ($275.00), with 0.2 micron
Ceramic filters or 0.3 micron Ceramic/Carbon filters are very good. I don't
like the plastic case that comes with the Katadyn Drip Gravity water filter.
If you were hiding from an enemy a plastic case would be best. In most
situations, I Would rather have stainless steel water case. Lehman's has a
small [new] one gallon Stainless Steel Tabletop Gravity Drip Filter with one
Ceramic Terra Cotta filter #85-100 for about $119.00 at Lehman's.
I like the AquaRain ($275.00) Tabletop Gravity Drip water filter with the
Stainless Steel case. It has four 0.3 micron Ceramic Filter Elements in it.
The four filters are all identical and you only need to use one filter at a time
if your water needs are low. Lehman's has their Stainless Steel model
#85-415, $279.00 which is just like AquaRain. Filters $39.95 each last 15000
gallons each.
Page 1
No point in using all four Ceramic Filters unless you need 25 gallons of
drinking water per day. I use just one water filter at a time to conserve on
cost. One filter puts out 6 gallon of filtered water per day. AquaRain is
obtained at Nitro-Pak. We use plastic corks to plug the filter holes we don't
use. The plastic corks work in either the Katadyn or AquaRain Tabletop
Drip Gravity filters. When we have power, we normally use the five stage
Reverse Osmosis Water Filter sold by Costco at about $159.95. An extra set
of filters is only $29.95. This unit mounts under the counter and is connected
to the waterline coming into your house. The Reverse Osmosis filter has
about a two gallon pressurized water tank that fits under the sink.
The very best and affordable drinking water comes from the Reverse
Osmosis Water Filter. The five filtering stages of Reverse Osmosis can't be
beat. The major drawback is that the Reverse Osmosis Water Filter
requires your well water pump to be working or some devise to create water
pressure. It takes several hours of water pressure to obtain two gallons of
water with the Reverse Osmosis Water Filter. We use Reverse Osmosis
most of the time because of its afford-ability and top water quality.
The filter elements on the Reverse Osmosis Water Filter lasted us about
seven months before we started to taste water quality dropping. We have
lots of rust and iron in our well water. Our water often gets cloudy when
water pressure increases due to high water use. When the water is ran at
full force, rust breaks loose from the lines. We often have to run the water
very slow for 15 minutes for the rust to clear out of the water. Never use
cloudy water in your Ceramic Water Filters, for cloudy water will shorten
the life of the water filters.
Reverse Osmosis is far superior in taste compared to one stage ceramic
filtering. The beauty of Ceramic Filtering is the simplicity of only needing
one filter and Tabletop design. With Gravity Drip Filtering you will have
filtered water even if the electric goes out. It is best to have both Reverse
Osmosis and Gravity Drip type water filtering systems. Then come hell or
high water, you will have filtered water. My Medical Doctors insist that I
use only filtered drinking water. After you have used filtered drinking water
for a few months, you will never want to go back to drinking unfiltered
water. Medical doctors insist we each drink over a gallon of water per day.
Page 2
It is very difficult to drink a gallon of unfiltered water per day because
unfiltered water does not taste good. It is no problem to drink more than a
gallon of filtered water per day because filtered water tastes better than
drinking pop, juice and other beverages. We prefer Reverse Osmosis
Filtered water over beer or pop any day!
LANTERNS
The best Lanterns for survival needs are the Petromax Multi-Fuel 500
Candlepower Lantern w/Reflector ($174.98) for outdoor use; and the
Aladdin 6320 Classic Brass Kerosene Lamp ($129.95) for indoor use. These
lanterns have no competition when it comes to efficiency, economy and
survival. The Petromax will burn almost anything but water. We prefer
using Kerosene in our Petromax, but it will burn lamp oil, cooking oil,
diesel, white gas, unleaded gas, lighter fluid, aviation fuel, mineral spirits or
Napatha. The fuels can even be mixed. The Petromax puts out about as
much light as a 400 Watt light bulb.
The Aladdin Lamp uses both a wick and a mantle. The Aladdin Lamp puts
out 20 times the light of the regular wick type Kerosene Lantern. It puts out
about as much light as a 60 Watt light bulb. The Aladdin Lamp works great.
There is no Kerosene smell with the Aladdin Lamp. It burns 100% clean
with the mantle. Mom and I each have our own Brass Aladdin Lamp.
We built wood lamp stands over our beds, chairs and in the bathroom. The
wood lamp stands have straps on them so the Lamps can't fall even in an
earthquake. This way we can carry our Aladdin Lamp anywhere in the
house and put it in a safe lamp stand. The only drawback to the Aladdin
Lamp is that they are tall and a little tippy. This is why it is best to build
wood lamp stands on the walls to set the lamps in.
Kerosene is the best fuel for lights in most survival situations. Kerosene
keeps better and longer than any other fuel type. Kerosene is safer than gas
and most other fuels because it is not near as flammable as most fuels.
Kerosene kept in containers designed to store Kerosene well last almost
forever. Gas starts to go bad in about 48 hours. Most of the good additives in
gas and diesel evaporate in just a few days.
Page 3
Cooking oil is a close second to Kerosene for survival lighting, but cooking
oil can get rancid in about five-to-seven years even when kept under ideal
conditions.
In a fallout shelter, Cooking Oil with wick is said to be the best lighting fuel
because of low air flow. All one needs in a fallout shelter is a glass jar with a
handmade wick propped up by wrapping a wire around the wick to hold up
the wick in the cooking oil. Or, one can design a wood float to hold the wick
up in the oil.
The book: "Nuclear War Survival Skills", by Cresson H. Kearny, shows
you how to design such lamps. The book also shows you how to build hand
air pumps and air filters to meet any fallout shelter design needs. It even
shows you how to make an $20.00 homemade fallout [KFM] meter as good
as any on the market costing $900 or more. Anyone interested in building a
survival retreat in the mountains will want a copy of "Nuclear War
Survival Skills".
Page 4