Just In Case

Since you all asked for it, this is my guide for surviving the Apocalypse.  There will be a few parts that might make you chuckle, but all-in-all, this is gonna be a lot more practical than you were thinking it would be.

It's 2012.  The world is slated for total devastation in just a few months.  You need a plan.

I don't know if the earth will flip on its axis, if there will be economic collapse, if there will be a zombie outbreak, or World War 3, but all signs point to something major going down in about 10 months or so and you need to be prepared.  Even if you believe that nothing at all will happen in 2012, you have to recognize that there are just enough nut-jobs out there to create their own apocalypse and drag the rest of us right along with them.  The plan that I will lay out for you is a worst-case scenario kind of thing. 


Since I am a firm believer that these things happen in threes, we are going with major economic collapse that leads to World War 3 resulting in a zombie apocalypse. 

You're not.  I promise.

Assuming that you survive the first 2, this will give you some tips on surviving the last stage.  Remember, a large portion of the population has been eliminated with a nuclear blast, and now many of the survivors are the walking dead.  The key word here is DEAD.  Avoid getting bitten and therefore infected and you can survive until they all rot away.


STEP ONE -- Basic Food and Water: 

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This is a start, but plan for 2 weeks of staying put.

This one you can do now. You will need to get some seeds. Opt for seeds that will produce foods that you and your family will eat and that hopefully produce MORE seeds. Think of yourself as an extreme couponer and start your stockpile -- seeds, canned goods, non-perishables, first-aid supplies, etc. You may need to barter some of your food or other supplies (I imagine toilet paper will become a hot commodity), so plan for this. Once the crap hits the fan so to speak, prepare any and all perishable foods in your home first. You'll need to have enough water on hand for each person in your family to consume one gallon per day as well as water for cooking, cleaning and sterilizing, and at some point, bathing. You cannot rely on public water supply or electricity. Those services will stop almost immediately. You'll need a cistern to collect water in (provided that the nuclear warfare wasn't extreme enough to cause a nuclear winter or acid rain) and you will need a grill, camp stove, or at the very least, fire pit. You will have to be extremely cautious while cooking anything because the smell of food might draw zombies to you who will try to eat you. Or worse, looters or other free loaders.  Make sure you have a few MRE's, protein bars, and other easily carried foods on hand.  Also, you can do a sort of dry-run on this by planning a 2 week period where you don't buy anything, but make due with what you have on hand in your house. 

STEP TWO -- General Safety

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Don't be part of the Zombie Buffet Line.

You will need to secure your home if you are planning on staying put.  (By the way, I highly suggest that you stay put for at least a little while until you can scope out how active your area is.)  Many people may think that you should hit the road immediately or that securing your home should be step one.  They.  Are.  WRONG.  What is the point of running out onto the roads to get stuck with everyone else and create the longest buffet line ever for the zombies?  And what good would shutting yourself and your family up in your home be if you have no food, no water, and no means of survival?  However, again, there are steps that you can take for this now.  Trust me, after an economic collapse, a nuclear war, and a zombie outbreak, you are not going to be able to just run down to the Home Depot and pick up a few things -- and chances are, some yahoo has already looted the stores.  No, you need to be ready before everything goes down.  Here's the types of things that you should have on hand: enough plywood to board up every window in your home (zombies can break glass), nails and screws to secure that plywood into place, tools with which to perform this work, a drill to place sight holes through the plywood, chains to secure doors, rebar for garage doors, etc.  If you have kids, they are going to be freaked out and going nuts....until they get bored.  I suggest finding kid games for them that will also hone their survival skills.  Get them a Nerf Crossbow and set up targets in the house for them to practice on while you are busy boarding up the windows.  It could come in very handy.

STEP THREE -- Weaponry:

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You cannot rely on just guns.

Your first instinct on weaponry is gonna be to stock up on as many guns and ammo as you can possibly get without getting on some government watch list. I agree that you need some guns and ammo for extreme emergencies, but if there is one thing that I have learned from zombie movies it is that zombie mobs are attracted by loud noises. So if you can get a silencer, get one. However, you need to consider that there will be no more bullets being manufactured, so your supply will be finite unless you are able to make your own. Once the zombies all decay into nothing, you will still have to hunt for meat to feed your family, and fight off undesirable human elements. Invest in a crossbow or two. Study the structure of the arrows, the mechanism, everything that you might have to replace or repair on your own. Retrieve your arrows whenever possible. Also, adopt a Mr. Miyagi approach -- everything can be a weapon.  Aim for the head.  Put all of your weight behind it.  Don't miss.

This is really all you need to remember.

STEP FOUR -- Travel:

The neighborhood is not a long term
residential solution.

Eventually, unless you already live on a farm or in a remote cabin, you are going to have to leave your house.  Start small.  Conduct reconnaissance in concentric circles around your house to gauge the danger level.  If you can, employ the use of a vehicle.   Prior to the collapse of the world as we know it, you should have an area in mind to head towards, and have several options in mind (you never know where the nuclear warfare will occur, your first choice might be contaminated).  It needs to be a remote area with plenty of land cleared all around it so that you can spot potential threats coming.  You will also need land to plant food.  I suggest making alliances NOW with a few other families that you can team up with to build a sort of zombie-free commune. All of those involved should invest in a few hand held radios for communication with each other.  Set up the frequency that you will use beforehand.  Decide now who will do what so that when the time comes, everyone knows their role.  Plan a rendezvous point with these other families so that you can all get to the designated area together.  Large groups are less likely to fall prey to vandals.  During your journey, be smart.  Bring as much as you can carry without slowing yourselves down.  You'll need a sewing kit, some type of shelter, food and water, etc.  Carry a siphon so that you can obtain gas from abandoned vehicles, drive as far as you can, keep an eye out for resources that you can use.  Should you be fortunate enough to pass a library, grab a few books on growing your own foods, a medical handbook, construction techniques, etc.  There will be no Internet for you to Google all of that crap when you get to your destination.  Remember that it is okay to have a few people in your group that do not really contribute anything, but don't get attached to them because in the event of an attack, you will probably have to sacrifice them for the good of the group.

Make sure that A) They can contribute to the good of the group,
and B) you actually like them.

STEP FIVE -- Survival:

Kids are the exception.

Abandon any liberal hippy agenda that you have about helping everyone else out of their situation.  If the zombie apocalypse happens, it will be every man for himself.  The world as you know it is over and there is nothing left to save except yourself and those that you love.  The minute this whole thing started, every survivor on the planet became a raging Republican.  Embrace your new role, and become a zombie killing bad ass with no regrets.  There is no sense in crying over all the ones you couldn't save, just focus on your family.  Once you arrive at your new, remote, location and begin settling in, you will occasionally have strangers who will wander across your land.  Don't kill them unless you have to, but don't welcome them into your group either unless they have some invaluable expertise to offer.  We have become a nation of academics, and as important as I think knowledge is in today's world, in the post-apocalyptic world we are talking about here you better be able to hunt, cook, build, dig, or do something useful with your hands.  No one is going to be sitting around discussing String Theory or Quantum Physics.  If you are an academic, or if your entire skill set is centered on technology that will no longer be operational, then your new hobby should be learning how to sew or knit or make bullets.

At least I will if you're a freeloader.

STEP SIX -- Sustainable Society

You need mad skills to be
in my commune.

You and the families that you have joined up with are now the government for your little commune.   Once settled in, you will need to form some sort of council to decide on issues facing your little corner of the world.  Every family gets one person on a council.  I suggest that you put the women in charge of this where possible.  The men can express their opinions to the women, and then the women can all meet and discuss and make the final decisions.  All of you are stuck together now and the women will be less likely to let ego cloud their judgements. You will need an education system of some sort so that future generations will understand how and why all of this happened, and to hopefully prevent it from happening again.  Everyone needs to participate in this.  Do not think that you will be able to push this off on the women in the group.   By having everyone share in this, the group will have multiple viewpoints.  Reading, writing, math, history, are all important, but you will also need to have time set aside to teach survival skills and trades.  I recommend that the adults participate in this as much as possible.  If you have one person who knows how to make candles, and that person gets bitten or sick, then you will be in the dark forever -- you see how redundancy is important.  Finally, you will need to employ ingenuity and imagination.  This is where your kids can help.  You should have regular sessions where the kids can brainstorm about ways to make life easier.  You may think this sounds silly, but the first time some kids suggests a network of zip lines to quickly get from the fields to the houses or designs an alarm system for the outer perimeter of your commune, you'll thank me.

Seriously.

This is a GUIDE.  You will have to adapt and change it to fit your particular Apocalypse situation.  I didn't cover everything, because some things are common sense and because I don't want everyone doing everything that I am doing because frankly, I've already got my team picked out; if you all followed my EXACT plan, things could get real crowded, real fast.  It is important that you don't get wrapped up in all of the things you no longer have -- cell phones, computers, electricity, running water, etc.  Instead, rejoice in all of the stuff you no longer have to deal with.  Never again will you have to worry about paying taxes, protests, congressional misconduct, politicians, nosy teachers, special interest groups, lobbyists, corporate greed, etc.  Nope, from here on out, the world is what you make of it.  So be prepared.  Get your team together, make a plan, and you can contribute to the survival of the human race.

I think my chances are actually a lot higher than this, but this is the best image I could find.