Daisy Luther - Be Ready for Anything: How to Survive Tornadoes, Earthquakes, Pandemics, Mass Shootings, Nuclear Disasters, and Other Life-Threatening Events

Although the author has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians or the professional advice of financial experts.

Copyright 2019 by Daisy Luther All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Daniel Brount Cover photographs by iStockphoto Print ISBN: 978-1-63158-392-6

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to my father, who gave me the push I needed when he told me, Writers write. They dont just talk about writing. I miss you and wish you could see this book .

THE BASICS

If you are reading this book, you want to be prepared for whatever emergencies come your way. While prepping for a dozen different disasters may sound like a daunting task, theres good news. Preparing for a wide variety of disasters requires the same basic supplies as preparing for one or two. For each event, there will be some special steps, unique information, and precautions you need to take, along with a few additional supplies, but your essentials will be the same.

It would be incredibly boring if I reinvented the wheel in each chapter, so at the end of this book, there is a general guide to getting prepped. Youll also find checklists to help you stock up on food, water, and other important supplies. Those will be referenced in nearly every chapter so if you are new to prepping, you may want to read the last section first. (This may be the first time youll ever be instructed to read the end of the book first!)

Appendix 1: Panic Prepping Basics ()

Appendix 2: Emergency Food Basics ()

Appendix 3: Emergency Water Basics (

Appendix 4: Power Outage Survival Basics ()

Appendix 5: Evacuation Basics ()

Appendix 6: Emergency Sanitation Basics ()

Appendix 7: Vehicle Emergency Kit Basics ()

Appendix 8: First Aid Kit Basics ()

Appendix 9: Food Safety Basics ()

Appendix 10: Entertainment Basics ()

THE THREE-STEP SURVIVAL METHOD

Another common thread in surviving a variety of disasters is your mindset. Let me start out by telling you about three easy steps that can help you survive nearly anything. This is a lesson well talk about again and again throughout this book, so I think its a great place to start. You can have enough food to ride out fifteen years of Armageddon. You can have a fully stocked retreat or bunker. You can have so much ammo stashed that your floorboards are groaning. You may have followed your favorite preparedness books guidelines to the letter, and thus have all of the physical aspects of survival in place.

Despite all of this, you still may not be fully prepared because, surprisingly enough, none of these is an indication of the prepper mindset. Those items are a great start, but to me, the pinnacle of preparedness is a way of thinking about pretty much everything you encounter. Its a unique way of looking at and accepting a situation, assessing the options and planning, and acting on that plan that defines the prepper mindset.

Think about any stressful or disastrous situation youve ever encountered. Once you accepted the fact that it happened, you were probably able to set a course of action. Once you had definitive steps to take, you probably felt much calmer. You took control of the things you could, and you executed your plan. Only by taking that first stepaccepting that this mishap had indeed occurredcould you take the next one.

There are three steps to handling any crisis with aplomb. While the execution isnt always easy, making these steps second nature will greatly increase your chances of survival, no matter what kind of disaster you find yourself facing.

No matter what situation comes your way, the first step is to accept that whatever the event is, it really happened. This is tougher than it sounds, because our minds are programmed to protect us from who identified the principle of cognitive dissonance, suggested that a motivational state of inner tension is triggered by logically inconsistent ways of thinking.

If youre wondering exactly how powerful cognitive dissonance can be, check out journalist Amanda Ripleys book, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikesand Why . As a journalist, Ripley covered many disasters of immense scale: plane crashes, natural disasters, even 9/11. She became curious about the difference between those who survived, and those who did not, wondering if it was dumb luck or if there was some other quality that made survival more likely. She interviewed hundreds of survivors and got her answer. The ability to immediately accept what was occurring was the quality most of the survivors possessed. The story from her book that has always stood out the most in my mind is the one about the people in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. They described the last time they saw some of their coworkers. There were many people who simply could not accept the fact that a plane had crashed into the building and that they must immediately evacuate. They gathered their belongings, tidied their desks, finished reports. They didnt feel the same sense of urgency that those who survived did, because the situation was so horrible that they just couldnt accept it. Their inability to accept the scope of danger caused many of them to perish in a tragic incident that other people, who acted immediately, were able to survive. When disaster strikes, you cant spend five minutes thinking, This cant actually be happening . It is happening and accepting that propels you through the first step into the second one.

Once youve accepted that disaster has struck, you must devise a plan. Its a whole lot easier to come up with a plan if youve spent just a little bit of time doing that previously. This is where more mental preparedness skills come into play. To build your prepper mindset, I suggest having a prepper movie night or reading books about survival scenarios to help you develop the habit of watching the situations unfold and analyzing them. What would you do in such a situation? What are the potential pitfalls? What is likely to go wrong? Watching movies and reading books like this is sort of a dry run for actual events. Obviously, its not the same as having an actual experience, but its a good way to practice the skills of assessing a situation and making a plan.

You can also work on building your awareness. My friend Scott Kelley from Graywolf Survival told me about Kims Game, a game based on Kim , a book by Rudyard Kipling, that teaches you to immediately observe your surroundings and commit these observations to memory. Groups of all ages, from the Boy Scouts to sniper schools to government spy agencies and surveillance teams, use this simple game to teach situational awareness and memory development. This is a fantastic game that you can play with your kids or teammates to help them be much better at noticing and remembering details. I have played a version of this with my kids for years, asking them questions like: