Christine's Site

Christine Barry

Prepping for an Ebola Lockdown: No one goes out, no one comes in |


Prepping for an Ebola Lockdown: No one goes out, no one comes in |
Prepping for an Ebola Lockdown: No one goes out, no one comes in Posted by: Daisy Luther | on August 5, 2014 | Reader Views: 24,008 886 302 48 7721 34 Are you prepared to go into lockdown mode if the Ebola virus begins to spread across the country? Hopefully, fears of a possible Ebola pandemic are exaggerated and being fanned by a government with an agenda and greedy pharmaceutical companies . However… Six people fell ill in New York City and are being tested for the virus. Paul Joseph Watson o...

12 Things Cheap Vodka Is Good for Besides the Obvious « Food Hacks


12 Things Cheap Vodka Is Good for Besides the Obvious « Food Hacks
12 Things Cheap Vodka Is Good for Besides the Obvious Posted By Karen Ahn 5710 3 hours ago Follow 27 27 27 Kudos 12 Things Cheap Vodka Is Good for Besides the Obvious The origins of vodka are shrouded in mystery , with both Russia and Poland laying claim to its invention. Some say Genovese merchants brought vodka (then known as aqua vitae , or the water of life) in the late fourteenth century. For many years, vodka wasn't just an alcoholic beverage: it was also consumed as medicine. It doesn't ...

Family Food Storage Plan For 3 Months | Emergency Preparedness


7 Dec | 2012

Family Food Storage Plan For 3 Months

December 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This page has been shared 80 times. View these Tweets.

Like
49
3

Making a family food storage plan for 3 months can feel daunting.  Overwhelming.  Something you’d rather not even think about.

How much do I need?

Where do I start?

How am I going to pay for it?

I suggest working on a 3 Month Family Food Storage Plan.  3-Months of foods you KNOW your family will eat.  Nothing funky.  Nothing you hope they will eat.  Don’t buy into the theory that when people get hungry enough, they’ll eat whatever you put in front of them.  It simply ain’t true!

I suggest you begin by creating 7 breakfast menus, 7 lunch menus, and 7 dinner menus that your family is familiar with and enjoys. 

Then break each menu down to each ingredient.  Don’t just assume you have enough tomato sauce, go and check.  Add up how many teaspoons of salt you will need and make sure you have it on hand.  How sad will you be when your Italian pasta bake has no oregano because you thought you had enough? If you like mayo with your tuna salad, you’d better list mayo on your ingredient list.  The same with pickles.  How’s your supply of celery salt looking? Go ahead and look, I’ll wait…

Now you should have the ingredients listed for 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches, and 7 dinners.

Since you are working towards a THREE MONTHS family food storage plan, you’ll want to take those ingredients and multiply it by 12.  12 weeks = 3 months.

  • If you are planning on serving oatmeal for breakfast once a week for 3 months, and your family uses a pound of dry oats per breakfast, then you are going to need 12 pounds of dried oats.
  • If you need 1 cup of raisins for each breakfast, they you will need 12 cups of raisins total.   How much brown sugar does your crew plow through each time they eat oatmeal?  You are going to need that much, times 12.
  • Oh, and if your family likes milk on their oatmeal, you’re gonna want to make sure you have either powdered or canned milk in your stash.

What I like the most about this plan of starting your food storage  is that you wind up with exactly what you need in order to make a variety of complete meals. 

(And because you have three months of meals your family can’t wait to eat, you can easily rotate the ingredients for each meal.  Yes, you must rotate your food storage. Don’t give me the stink eye over this.  Storing only cans of stuff that lasts for 20 years, is expensive and  full of sodium.  In times of crisis your family is going to want foods that are familiar. )

Imagine 3 months of nothing but taco shells, green beans and pudding cups.

Yeah.

This plan is sounding better already, huh?

Food Storage Plan

Food storage plan for 3 months step by step infographic

PS:  Wondering how to make meals that call for meat if the power has gone out?  Yoders makes canned meat that actually tastes good.  With an (approx) 8 year shelf life, you may want to invest in a few cans.  I keep a couple of cases of the canned hamburger on hand.


HURRICANE KATRINA


LISTENING TO KATRINA

LOOK FOR CONTENT RATINGS AT THE TOP OF EACH PAGE

HOW TO USE THIS SITE

SITE MAP

Listening to Katrina is a record of my personal experience of hurricane Katrina, and a guide to help you prepare for emergencies and disasters of all kinds.  This work is very straightforward and available entirely online.  I am not selling anything.

This site has several uses.  I have been told that it is enormously entertaining - so if nothing else, it's good for goofing off at work.  You can access all of the content of this site through the CONTENTS menu at the left side of any page. 

MEDIA & LINKS - Links to other sites and other media that reference this site. 

WORKBOOK - The site encourages you to create and maintain a Workbook for your family.  As you read the Listening to Katrina sections, you'll be taught how to do this.  I don't sell the workbook.  You have to build your own, but you can print all the pages for free from that link.

PREPAREDNESS PROJECTS - The site encourages you to make certain preparations, but does not provide much depth on some technical details.  The Preparedness Projects pages provide that detail.  They are also designed so that you can accomplish each project in your own time frame in small steps.

LISTENING TO KATRINA - This is the main portion of the site.  It is the story and the guide.  While I use my experience of Katrina as an example, the preparations I talk about aren't just about hurricanes.  The preparations I cover are useful for every sort of emergency - from a simple house fire to global thermonuclear war.  Every page has a place in the context, and I invite you to read the site page for page in sequence.  There are very few pages that are extraneous, and if you skip around you will lose the context and the site will not be very useful to you.

SITE MAP

LISTENING TO KATRINA

HYST - HAVE YOUR STUFF TOGETHER

        (It isn't really 'stuff', but this page has a 'G' rating.)

Home - Site context.

Introduction - About the site.

Philosophy - Introduction to the philosophy of preparedness and survival.

Run Away! - Opening story of my escape from Katrina.

Bugging Out - T&P - Opening discussion about evacuation.

The Plan - Part 1 -
Planning to make plans.

HYST - Documents -
Collecting critical documents.

HYST - BOB 1 -
Introduction to Bug Out Bags.

HYST - Get a Camera -
Digital Camera as a survival tool.

HYST - Complete the Circle -
Assembling the LGO bag.

HYST - Not Just 4 U -
Thinking about your preps and helping others.

PLAN - 60 Seconds! -
The 60 second plan.

HYST - Comm Check! -
Relationships with other people.

PLAN - Where Y'at? -
Variables to consider for preparations.

PHIL - What's it worth? -
What's it worth to you to prepare?

PLAN - Escape Pod -
Organizing your Bug Out Vehicle.

PLAN - T-Minus 60 Minutes -
The 1 Hour Plan

PHIL - Why are you doing this? -
Critical philosophy.

EVENT - Yellow Alert -
My experience watching Katrina form.

EVENT - Eject! Eject! Eject! -
Making the decision to evacuate.

EVENT - 12 Hours to Doomsday -
Packing to leave.

PLAN - 12 Hour Plan -
Putting together your 12 Hour Plan.

PLAN - Special Needs -
Considerations for special needs.

PHIL - Flowchart of Strategy -
Looking forward after a diaster.

EVENT - Row! Row! Row! -
My evacuation experience.

HYST - Land Ho! -
Picking a place to stay during an evacuation.

HYST - Elephants are Coming! -
Getting your spouse to cooperate with preps.

HYST - WTF Just Happened? -
Summary of HYST.

LANDFALL

EVENT - WTF Do I Do Now? - The disaster begins.

EVENT - First Day of Thoth - History of New Orleans for the context of Katrina

EVENT - Here I am.  Where U? - Contacting other people.  The first day.

EVENT - The Band Played On -
The political context for Katrina.

ANAL - Dance, Girl, Curl -
Analysis of political failures in the context of preparations.

EVENT - Battle of New Orleans -
Landfall events.

ANAL - Armageddon Lite -
Analysis of the initial disaster.

PLAN - Location * 3 -
Choosing where you live.

EVENT - Hello Sugar Land! - More of our first day.  Formulating an ACTION plan.

EVENT - SHTF -
Analysis of storm damage.

ACTION!

PLAN - Lights, Camera, Action! - ACTION plans explained.

EVENT - Calling FEMA - Instructions on registering with FEMA.

PLAN - ACTION Plan SAFE - ACTION plan if you are safe.

PLAN - ACTION Plan DANGER - ACTION plan if you are not safe.

EVENT - Out of the Woodwork - Insanity after the storm.

EVENT - Good, Bad, Ugly - Examining government response on day one.

EVENT - No Way Out - Mr. Fournier and 'Let's Go' Joe

PREP - Get a Neck Safe - A prep for ID, Location, and Memory

PREP - Build a Scat Pack - A cheap, easy, grab-and-go bag.

EVENT - Descent into Chaos - Organized Insanity

EVENT - Vinnie's Looters - In which our hero provides several lessons.

PREPAREDNESS PROJECTS

LGO BAG - How to create and assemble a Life Goes On Bag

LGO BAG - Theory - LGO Bag defined.  Why you need one.  What goes in it.

LGO BAG - Shopping List - Things you need.  Won't make sense unless you've read the Theory page.

LGO BAG - Data Store -
Organizing information wealth.

LGO BAG - Encryption 101 -
Using encryption to protect critical documents.

LGO BAG - Data in the Bank -
Scanning photographs and vital records.

LGO BAG - Flash Dance -
Portable copies of your critical data wealth.

LGO BAG - Redundant Copy -
Making and keeping safety copies.

LGO BAG - Windows Backup -
Making and keeping safety copies.

LGO BAG - Data Maintenance -
Strategies for maintaining data.

LGO BAG - Advanced Geekery - Advanced ideas for geeks.

LGO BAG - Put It Together - Assembling your LGO Bag


Zombie Squad • View topic - Pandemic Preparations


This thread is meant to be a basic resource for pandemic preparation and survival. As such all are welcome to add useful references and correct any incorrect information.



I started this thread after reading this book. I highly recommend any one planning for a pandemic to read it. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History by John M. Barry. ISBN 0-670-89473-7

Link to on line version



I then saw the movie Contagion and realized they based the story off the 1918 pandemic and simply modernized it. So I decided to do the same thing for this post.



It is worth nothing that historically pandemics have happened many times and have lead to significant population declines and social changes. Like most SHTF events they routinely occur at the worst possible time and generally with little notice. The modern society in which we live minimizes some of the risks through medical knowledge and superior communication, but at the same time we facilitate further pandemics since practically anyone can be in any part of the world within 24 hours. The modern transport system provides an excellent and efficient transport method for transporting illnesses.



There are many kinds of diseases which in theory can result in a pandemic. The list of them are depressing large. Here is a link historical pandemics

Fortunately one huge and chronic killer, small pox, is now officially extinct. Others such as Yellow Fever ( a big historical killer in New Orleans) are likewise under control in most areas of the world. However, others like cholera, typhoid, typhus and hepatitis among others are simply a natural disaster away. Others like influenza attack each year with varying mortality and cases.



I intend to use the 1918 pandemic as the background for this thread since it was both devastating and most recent. Clearly the preparation for a biological/chemical attack, resurgence of small pox and/or other much more virulent forms of viral/bacterial agents may require more robust and different preparations; however the basics of transmission, prevention and sanitation are similar.



1918 Flu Pandemic



The 1918 Flu Pandemic while occurring almost 100 years ago and still provides us with several lessons and thus worth the time to study. The key take home fact is that this pandemic killed over 100 million people worldwide, ( about 3%+ of the world’s population) 25 million died in the first 25 weeks. Some countries/locations were hit much harder than others. For instance 90% of the entire population of the Island of Western Samoa was infected 30% of adult men, 22% of adult women and 10% of children died whereas nearby American Samoa which enacted a unilateral embargo to prevent visitors had no cases reported. Notice the large number of adult male deaths.



The influenza’s origin has not been proven conclusively; Fort Riley Kansas, France, China, Boston and Austria have been attributed as the origin by different researchers. However in my opinion I think we should concentrate on the effect and not the origin.



The influenza came in two waves, with the second wave being much more deadly than the first. The interesting thing is that the young and healthy had a higher mortality rate. This has been attributed to the flu’s method of attack which is a cytokine storm. I will let those with more medical knowledge explain it, but simply put it turns the person’s immune system against itself, thus the stronger the immune system the stronger the attack. Youth, health and vigor offered little protection. The First World War was ending and between the stress from the war and close quarters of army camps and the trenches provided a nice incubator for the influenza. Couple this with troopships taking troops to all points in the world and you combine a great incubator with an efficient transport system.



The resulting casualties were startling. The influenza showed up in the US in force in the port cities. 99% of the pandemic influenza deaths occurred in people under 65, and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old. The death rate was around 20% of those who were infected. The other group that suffered heavily was pregnant women. The symptoms were also unusual and many cases were initially diagnosed as dengue, typhoid or cholera. There was bleeding from the ears, intestines and stomach but bacterial pneumonia and hemorrhaging were the primary causes of death. People in effect drown from fluid in the lungs.



The scene in many places was apocalyptic: overcrowded hospitals, mass graves, commerce stopped, municipal auditoriums used as makeshift hospitals, grave diggers too sick to bury the dead, health care professionals abandoning their posts. In short, everything that you would expect, except perhaps the collapse of society which worldwide with few exceptions continued. The First World War was over and this caused quite enough turmoil in and of itself with the downfall of royal and imperial dynasties all over Europe and Russia. Thus I suppose the turmoil was already underway.



Transmission of the Disease



A lot of illnesses have a time frame when the person exhibits no symptoms but is contagious. You feel good but you are spreading the illness.



A book could be written on the stories of transmission of the influenza, in fact many have. I will again boil down the commonly accepted transmission points by looking at the Fort Riley, Kansas incident. A cook reported sick and within days 522 men were ill with the influenza. Clearly the cook inadvertently spread the disease to these people after first being infected by someone. Spreading the influenza was easy for the cook the mess hall was crowded and the men ate in close proximity to one another. In addition it is likely that sanitation (hand washing, hair nets gloves, etc.) was not very good.

In short close proximity to people where people can breath, sneeze or otherwise pass along the illness through contact with contaminated surfaces. People frequently rub their eyes, touch their face, pick their nose and put their fingers in their mouth. If your hands have been in contact with a contaminated surface or person and then for whatever reason rubs their eyes, nose or mouth, they have effectively permitted a path for the illness to intrude. Other illnesses can be transmitted in aerosol form, i.e. coughing and sneezing.



The influenza thrived in the barracks, the troop ships, the prison camps and military bases. Remember all military bases even then had a lot civilian resources coming in every day to provide food, supplies and any number of necessary items. These civilians also delivered the good s and services to others thus providing a means to spread the influenza quite effectively.



Ports of entry, railway hubs and other transport zones experienced more cases than other areas. In 1918 there were no interstate highways and relatively few cars per capita. But the patterns were clear transport choke points then points where people congregated were the primary and secondary transmission points. These included passenger ship docking terminals, railway terminals, the bars, restaurants and hotels that normally pop up around these points followed by the hospitals, stores, schools, theaters and any enclosed place where people congregate.



The other thing that stuck me was the truly random nature of many of these transmission incidents. It was for many, a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is clear that random chance played a part in many of these incidents



So What Should We Do to Prepare?



Intelligence: An epidemic is not likely to give any warning and in fact for a true pandemic to occur, unless we work in the field, we probably will not know about it until it is well underway. Obviously governmental sources are useful to provide information. Yes (for those with tinfoil) it can be a source of possible disinformation but there are several sources that can be consulted and at least provide “official" information.



Links to sites:

http://www.google.org/flutrends/

http://www.who.int/csr/en/

http://www.cdc.gov/



Vaccinations: I know there are people who will disagree but in my opinion staying current on vaccinations is a great way to keep many of the more common nasties at bay. However, it is very unlikely that any illness for which there is a vaccine will turn into a pandemic. There may be a vaccine made later but initially there is unlikely to be one. Think about it; it is difficult for a bug to spread if there are a lot of people immune to it. Another pandemic is more likely to be a variation of one of the influenzas or other illness that does not presently have a vaccine. Thus vaccines while sensible are unlikely to offer any protection.



Hygiene: After reading about the pandemic I started paying more attention to washing hands and disinfecting eating utensils. However, I do not want either you or me to turn into Howard Hughes and demand Kleenex covering all our food. That said this seems to be a very effective way to reduce the probability of catching colds and other ordinary illnesses. You do not have to be obsessive about it but simple hand washing and basic sanitation will go a long way to preventing illness. Hand sanitizers are not really necessary and plain soap and water will work quite well . Though hand sanitizer is a good substitute if you do not have access to clean water.

Decontamination of food utensils is equally simple. The use of hot water and soap in the dishwasher is generally adequate to eliminate viruses like influenza. Use the hot dry option and that pretty much ensures that eating utensils will be safe for your use.



Clothing likewise is generally fairly easy to deal with as long as you have soap and hot water.



Avoidance: This is actually a great strategy. The CDC and WHO both suggest avoiding ill people, stay 6 to 10 feet away from them and in general avoid confined spaces where there are sick people. The problem with this strategy is that you have to stay locked up in your house and avoid airports, public transport (buses/trains/planes), supermarkets, shopping centers or otherwise anyplace where people congregate. That sounds more like a prison than a life. However it can be a good strategy to avoid infection. In the event of a breakout this strategy is IMO the key strategy to implement. A bug in is likely to be a very good defense. Obviously a bug in assumes you have supplies in your BIL to stay inside for a prolonged period.



Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): PPE for a pandemic would in many cases be a simple N-95 mask, glasses long sleeve shirt and pants with shoes and gloves. Obviously HAZMAT responders, lab techs, primary care providers and people in close proximity to sick people will need specific protocols. However for the average person this basic PPE and distance is likely to be effective. I would also note that the CDC in its protocols considers PPE the 4th in importance. The logic is that PPE is the last ditch defense and to be used only if other protocols fail.



Personally when I reviewed my equipment I included some disposable tyvek suits and booties. I also include PVC rain gear and boots which I would wear over my regular clothes to make decontamination easier by leaving the outer gear outside of my living areas. However, after reading the CDC protocols I now consider this overkill…but I will keep it in the kit.



I would note that the official opinion is that face masks may or may not be useful.



Some links:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 2242.story

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/masks.htm



These are masks that 3M recommends:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... XHL4K61Jgl



Other 3M Masks that would also be useful:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... gv%29&rt=d

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... gv%29&rt=d

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... 4402&rt=c3



I would note that while the evidence that a face mask can prevent infection in everyday situations is limited; the evidence is solid that when it comes to care givers. It has been demonstrated that the use of face masks cuts the exposure risk significantly when coupled with routine hand washing for caregivers taking care of family members. The key variable in face mask effectiveness was the lack of training and the resulting improper use of the mask. If you buy masks learn how to properly fit them and practice with them.



The key take away here is that N-95 masks are useful, but they are not a panacea. Simply washing your hands and avoiding touching your eyes, nose and mouth with your hands will likely be as useful as a mask. That is not to say you should not stock face masks; only that access to soap and clean water is also just as critical. If these are not available use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol..



Prepare to Get Sick : Obviously the primary goal is not get sick in a pandemic. That said the secondary goal is survive the illness if you do contract the illness. You also may be lucky enough to avoid the illness but that may not be case for a loved one. You may need to be the caregiver. Remember in a pandemic hospitals will be overloaded and medical care may not be available. It may also require that you go to a hospital or makeshift hospital filled with people sick from the pandemic only to wait several hours for access to an overworked medical professional who may not be able to do anything beyond providing palliative care. Thus if you are healthy you risk getting infected for no effective assistance. This is a poor choice.



A person who is contagious should be isolated from the rest of the family. They should be as far away from

the rest of the family as physical possible and comfortable. You should clean the sheets, clothing and dinnerware separately from the others. The caregiver should wear a mask and wash hands before and after providing care. The ill person should stay in the room or if they must leave the room (say to use the bathroom) make sure they are provided with a face mask to minimize the contamination to the rest of the house.



You should review your FAK to ensure that you have decongestants, expectorants and over the counter cold and flu medicine. These obviously treat only symptoms but that may be better than nothing. You may, after consulting with your doctor, want to acquire some Tami flu and other specific prescription drugs to take if you are exposed to likely risks. You should also have on hand basic hydration materials to combat dehydration. I assume you already have a decent FAK with analgesics and wide variety of medications, prescription and other wise. You want to be able to take care of an ill person for a minimum of 10 days, obviously more is better.



Other Useful Links



Cities With High levels of International Travelers and Thus More likely have Infected Travelers



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_ ... er_traffic



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ai ... rs_boarded





Other Useful Links:



Decontamination: Cleaning and hand washing:



http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi ... ne.0008987



EPA registered disinfectants:



http://www.epa.gov/oppad001/chemregindex.htm

http://www.epa.gov/oppad001/influenza-a ... t-list.pdf



Common Serious Infectious Diseases:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigellosis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_fever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meningitis



Homeopathic treatments for when there is no medical care available



http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/surefire.shtml

http://www.umm.edu/patiented/articles/h ... 0094_6.htm

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/featu ... ome?page=2



Oral rehydration for treating vomiting and diarrhea



http://rehydrate.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy

http://www.who.int/cholera/technical/en/
This thread is meant to be a basic resource for pandemic preparation and survival. As such all are welcome to add useful references and correct any incorrect information.



I started this thread after reading this book. I highly recommend any one planning for a pandemic to read it. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History by John M. Barry. ISBN 0-670-89473-7

Link to on line version



I then saw the movie Contagion and realized they based the story off the 1918 pandemic and simply modernized it. So I decided to do the same thing for this post.



It is worth nothing that historically pandemics have happened many times and have lead to significant population declines and social changes. Like most SHTF events they routinely occur at the worst possible time and generally with little notice. The modern society in which we live minimizes some of the risks through medical knowledge and superior communication, but at the same time we facilitate further pandemics since practically anyone can be in any part of the world within 24 hours. The modern transport system provides an excellent and efficient transport method for transporting illnesses.



There are many kinds of diseases which in theory can result in a pandemic. The list of them are depressing large. Here is a link historical pandemics

Fortunately one huge and chronic killer, small pox, is now officially extinct. Others such as Yellow Fever ( a big historical killer in New Orleans) are likewise under control in most areas of the world. However, others like cholera, typhoid, typhus and hepatitis among others are simply a natural disaster away. Others like influenza attack each year with varying mortality and cases.



I intend to use the 1918 pandemic as the background for this thread since it was both devastating and most recent. Clearly the preparation for a biological/chemical attack, resurgence of small pox and/or other much more virulent forms of viral/bacterial agents may require more robust and different preparations; however the basics of transmission, prevention and sanitation are similar.



1918 Flu Pandemic



The 1918 Flu Pandemic while occurring almost 100 years ago and still provides us with several lessons and thus worth the time to study. The key take home fact is that this pandemic killed over 100 million people worldwide, ( about 3%+ of the world’s population) 25 million died in the first 25 weeks. Some countries/locations were hit much harder than others. For instance 90% of the entire population of the Island of Western Samoa was infected 30% of adult men, 22% of adult women and 10% of children died whereas nearby American Samoa which enacted a unilateral embargo to prevent visitors had no cases reported. Notice the large number of adult male deaths.



The influenza’s origin has not been proven conclusively; Fort Riley Kansas, France, China, Boston and Austria have been attributed as the origin by different researchers. However in my opinion I think we should concentrate on the effect and not the origin.



The influenza came in two waves, with the second wave being much more deadly than the first. The interesting thing is that the young and healthy had a higher mortality rate. This has been attributed to the flu’s method of attack which is a cytokine storm. I will let those with more medical knowledge explain it, but simply put it turns the person’s immune system against itself, thus the stronger the immune system the stronger the attack. Youth, health and vigor offered little protection. The First World War was ending and between the stress from the war and close quarters of army camps and the trenches provided a nice incubator for the influenza. Couple this with troopships taking troops to all points in the world and you combine a great incubator with an efficient transport system.



The resulting casualties were startling. The influenza showed up in the US in force in the port cities. 99% of the pandemic influenza deaths occurred in people under 65, and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old. The death rate was around 20% of those who were infected. The other group that suffered heavily was pregnant women. The symptoms were also unusual and many cases were initially diagnosed as dengue, typhoid or cholera. There was bleeding from the ears, intestines and stomach but bacterial pneumonia and hemorrhaging were the primary causes of death. People in effect drown from fluid in the lungs.



The scene in many places was apocalyptic: overcrowded hospitals, mass graves, commerce stopped, municipal auditoriums used as makeshift hospitals, grave diggers too sick to bury the dead, health care professionals abandoning their posts. In short, everything that you would expect, except perhaps the collapse of society which worldwide with few exceptions continued. The First World War was over and this caused quite enough turmoil in and of itself with the downfall of royal and imperial dynasties all over Europe and Russia. Thus I suppose the turmoil was already underway.



Transmission of the Disease



A lot of illnesses have a time frame when the person exhibits no symptoms but is contagious. You feel good but you are spreading the illness.



A book could be written on the stories of transmission of the influenza, in fact many have. I will again boil down the commonly accepted transmission points by looking at the Fort Riley, Kansas incident. A cook reported sick and within days 522 men were ill with the influenza. Clearly the cook inadvertently spread the disease to these people after first being infected by someone. Spreading the influenza was easy for the cook the mess hall was crowded and the men ate in close proximity to one another. In addition it is likely that sanitation (hand washing, hair nets gloves, etc.) was not very good.

In short close proximity to people where people can breath, sneeze or otherwise pass along the illness through contact with contaminated surfaces. People frequently rub their eyes, touch their face, pick their nose and put their fingers in their mouth. If your hands have been in contact with a contaminated surface or person and then for whatever reason rubs their eyes, nose or mouth, they have effectively permitted a path for the illness to intrude. Other illnesses can be transmitted in aerosol form, i.e. coughing and sneezing.



The influenza thrived in the barracks, the troop ships, the prison camps and military bases. Remember all military bases even then had a lot civilian resources coming in every day to provide food, supplies and any number of necessary items. These civilians also delivered the good s and services to others thus providing a means to spread the influenza quite effectively.



Ports of entry, railway hubs and other transport zones experienced more cases than other areas. In 1918 there were no interstate highways and relatively few cars per capita. But the patterns were clear transport choke points then points where people congregated were the primary and secondary transmission points. These included passenger ship docking terminals, railway terminals, the bars, restaurants and hotels that normally pop up around these points followed by the hospitals, stores, schools, theaters and any enclosed place where people congregate.



The other thing that stuck me was the truly random nature of many of these transmission incidents. It was for many, a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is clear that random chance played a part in many of these incidents



So What Should We Do to Prepare?



Intelligence: An epidemic is not likely to give any warning and in fact for a true pandemic to occur, unless we work in the field, we probably will not know about it until it is well underway. Obviously governmental sources are useful to provide information. Yes (for those with tinfoil) it can be a source of possible disinformation but there are several sources that can be consulted and at least provide “official" information.



Links to sites:

http://www.google.org/flutrends/

http://www.who.int/csr/en/

http://www.cdc.gov/



Vaccinations: I know there are people who will disagree but in my opinion staying current on vaccinations is a great way to keep many of the more common nasties at bay. However, it is very unlikely that any illness for which there is a vaccine will turn into a pandemic. There may be a vaccine made later but initially there is unlikely to be one. Think about it; it is difficult for a bug to spread if there are a lot of people immune to it. Another pandemic is more likely to be a variation of one of the influenzas or other illness that does not presently have a vaccine. Thus vaccines while sensible are unlikely to offer any protection.



Hygiene: After reading about the pandemic I started paying more attention to washing hands and disinfecting eating utensils. However, I do not want either you or me to turn into Howard Hughes and demand Kleenex covering all our food. That said this seems to be a very effective way to reduce the probability of catching colds and other ordinary illnesses. You do not have to be obsessive about it but simple hand washing and basic sanitation will go a long way to preventing illness. Hand sanitizers are not really necessary and plain soap and water will work quite well . Though hand sanitizer is a good substitute if you do not have access to clean water.

Decontamination of food utensils is equally simple. The use of hot water and soap in the dishwasher is generally adequate to eliminate viruses like influenza. Use the hot dry option and that pretty much ensures that eating utensils will be safe for your use.



Clothing likewise is generally fairly easy to deal with as long as you have soap and hot water.



Avoidance: This is actually a great strategy. The CDC and WHO both suggest avoiding ill people, stay 6 to 10 feet away from them and in general avoid confined spaces where there are sick people. The problem with this strategy is that you have to stay locked up in your house and avoid airports, public transport (buses/trains/planes), supermarkets, shopping centers or otherwise anyplace where people congregate. That sounds more like a prison than a life. However it can be a good strategy to avoid infection. In the event of a breakout this strategy is IMO the key strategy to implement. A bug in is likely to be a very good defense. Obviously a bug in assumes you have supplies in your BIL to stay inside for a prolonged period.



Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): PPE for a pandemic would in many cases be a simple N-95 mask, glasses long sleeve shirt and pants with shoes and gloves. Obviously HAZMAT responders, lab techs, primary care providers and people in close proximity to sick people will need specific protocols. However for the average person this basic PPE and distance is likely to be effective. I would also note that the CDC in its protocols considers PPE the 4th in importance. The logic is that PPE is the last ditch defense and to be used only if other protocols fail.



Personally when I reviewed my equipment I included some disposable tyvek suits and booties. I also include PVC rain gear and boots which I would wear over my regular clothes to make decontamination easier by leaving the outer gear outside of my living areas. However, after reading the CDC protocols I now consider this overkill…but I will keep it in the kit.



I would note that the official opinion is that face masks may or may not be useful.



Some links:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 2242.story

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/masks.htm



These are masks that 3M recommends:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... XHL4K61Jgl



Other 3M Masks that would also be useful:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... gv%29&rt=d

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... gv%29&rt=d

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... 4402&rt=c3



I would note that while the evidence that a face mask can prevent infection in everyday situations is limited; the evidence is solid that when it comes to care givers. It has been demonstrated that the use of face masks cuts the exposure risk significantly when coupled with routine hand washing for caregivers taking care of family members. The key variable in face mask effectiveness was the lack of training and the resulting improper use of the mask. If you buy masks learn how to properly fit them and practice with them.



The key take away here is that N-95 masks are useful, but they are not a panacea. Simply washing your hands and avoiding touching your eyes, nose and mouth with your hands will likely be as useful as a mask. That is not to say you should not stock face masks; only that access to soap and clean water is also just as critical. If these are not available use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol..



Prepare to Get Sick : Obviously the primary goal is not get sick in a pandemic. That said the secondary goal is survive the illness if you do contract the illness. You also may be lucky enough to avoid the illness but that may not be case for a loved one. You may need to be the caregiver. Remember in a pandemic hospitals will be overloaded and medical care may not be available. It may also require that you go to a hospital or makeshift hospital filled with people sick from the pandemic only to wait several hours for access to an overworked medical professional who may not be able to do anything beyond providing palliative care. Thus if you are healthy you risk getting infected for no effective assistance. This is a poor choice.



A person who is contagious should be isolated from the rest of the family. They should be as far away from

the rest of the family as physical possible and comfortable. You should clean the sheets, clothing and dinnerware separately from the others. The caregiver should wear a mask and wash hands before and after providing care. The ill person should stay in the room or if they must leave the room (say to use the bathroom) make sure they are provided with a face mask to minimize the contamination to the rest of the house.



You should review your FAK to ensure that you have decongestants, expectorants and over the counter cold and flu medicine. These obviously treat only symptoms but that may be better than nothing. You may, after consulting with your doctor, want to acquire some Tami flu and other specific prescription drugs to take if you are exposed to likely risks. You should also have on hand basic hydration materials to combat dehydration. I assume you already have a decent FAK with analgesics and wide variety of medications, prescription and other wise. You want to be able to take care of an ill person for a minimum of 10 days, obviously more is better.



Other Useful Links



Cities With High levels of International Travelers and Thus More likely have Infected Travelers



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_ ... er_traffic



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ai ... rs_boarded





Other Useful Links:



Decontamination: Cleaning and hand washing:



http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi ... ne.0008987



EPA registered disinfectants:



http://www.epa.gov/oppad001/chemregindex.htm

http://www.epa.gov/oppad001/influenza-a ... t-list.pdf



Common Serious Infectious Diseases:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigellosis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_fever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meningitis



Homeopathic treatments for when there is no medical care available



http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/surefire.shtml

http://www.umm.edu/patiented/articles/h ... 0094_6.htm

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/featu ... ome?page=2



Oral rehydration for treating vomiting and diarrhea



http://rehydrate.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy

http://www.who.int/cholera/technical/en/
This thread is meant to be a basic resource for pandemic preparation and survival. As such all are welcome to add useful references and correct any incorrect information.



I started this thread after reading this book. I highly recommend any one planning for a pandemic to read it. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History by John M. Barry. ISBN 0-670-89473-7

Link to on line version



I then saw the movie Contagion and realized they based the story off the 1918 pandemic and simply modernized it. So I decided to do the same thing for this post.



It is worth nothing that historically pandemics have happened many times and have lead to significant population declines and social changes. Like most SHTF events they routinely occur at the worst possible time and generally with little notice. The modern society in which we live minimizes some of the risks through medical knowledge and superior communication, but at the same time we facilitate further pandemics since practically anyone can be in any part of the world within 24 hours. The modern transport system provides an excellent and efficient transport method for transporting illnesses.



There are many kinds of diseases which in theory can result in a pandemic. The list of them are depressing large. Here is a link historical pandemics

Fortunately one huge and chronic killer, small pox, is now officially extinct. Others such as Yellow Fever ( a big historical killer in New Orleans) are likewise under control in most areas of the world. However, others like cholera, typhoid, typhus and hepatitis among others are simply a natural disaster away. Others like influenza attack each year with varying mortality and cases.



I intend to use the 1918 pandemic as the background for this thread since it was both devastating and most recent. Clearly the preparation for a biological/chemical attack, resurgence of small pox and/or other much more virulent forms of viral/bacterial agents may require more robust and different preparations; however the basics of transmission, prevention and sanitation are similar.



1918 Flu Pandemic



The 1918 Flu Pandemic while occurring almost 100 years ago and still provides us with several lessons and thus worth the time to study. The key take home fact is that this pandemic killed over 100 million people worldwide, ( about 3%+ of the world’s population) 25 million died in the first 25 weeks. Some countries/locations were hit much harder than others. For instance 90% of the entire population of the Island of Western Samoa was infected 30% of adult men, 22% of adult women and 10% of children died whereas nearby American Samoa which enacted a unilateral embargo to prevent visitors had no cases reported. Notice the large number of adult male deaths.



The influenza’s origin has not been proven conclusively; Fort Riley Kansas, France, China, Boston and Austria have been attributed as the origin by different researchers. However in my opinion I think we should concentrate on the effect and not the origin.



The influenza came in two waves, with the second wave being much more deadly than the first. The interesting thing is that the young and healthy had a higher mortality rate. This has been attributed to the flu’s method of attack which is a cytokine storm. I will let those with more medical knowledge explain it, but simply put it turns the person’s immune system against itself, thus the stronger the immune system the stronger the attack. Youth, health and vigor offered little protection. The First World War was ending and between the stress from the war and close quarters of army camps and the trenches provided a nice incubator for the influenza. Couple this with troopships taking troops to all points in the world and you combine a great incubator with an efficient transport system.



The resulting casualties were startling. The influenza showed up in the US in force in the port cities. 99% of the pandemic influenza deaths occurred in people under 65, and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old. The death rate was around 20% of those who were infected. The other group that suffered heavily was pregnant women. The symptoms were also unusual and many cases were initially diagnosed as dengue, typhoid or cholera. There was bleeding from the ears, intestines and stomach but bacterial pneumonia and hemorrhaging were the primary causes of death. People in effect drown from fluid in the lungs.



The scene in many places was apocalyptic: overcrowded hospitals, mass graves, commerce stopped, municipal auditoriums used as makeshift hospitals, grave diggers too sick to bury the dead, health care professionals abandoning their posts. In short, everything that you would expect, except perhaps the collapse of society which worldwide with few exceptions continued. The First World War was over and this caused quite enough turmoil in and of itself with the downfall of royal and imperial dynasties all over Europe and Russia. Thus I suppose the turmoil was already underway.



Transmission of the Disease



A lot of illnesses have a time frame when the person exhibits no symptoms but is contagious. You feel good but you are spreading the illness.



A book could be written on the stories of transmission of the influenza, in fact many have. I will again boil down the commonly accepted transmission points by looking at the Fort Riley, Kansas incident. A cook reported sick and within days 522 men were ill with the influenza. Clearly the cook inadvertently spread the disease to these people after first being infected by someone. Spreading the influenza was easy for the cook the mess hall was crowded and the men ate in close proximity to one another. In addition it is likely that sanitation (hand washing, hair nets gloves, etc.) was not very good.

In short close proximity to people where people can breath, sneeze or otherwise pass along the illness through contact with contaminated surfaces. People frequently rub their eyes, touch their face, pick their nose and put their fingers in their mouth. If your hands have been in contact with a contaminated surface or person and then for whatever reason rubs their eyes, nose or mouth, they have effectively permitted a path for the illness to intrude. Other illnesses can be transmitted in aerosol form, i.e. coughing and sneezing.



The influenza thrived in the barracks, the troop ships, the prison camps and military bases. Remember all military bases even then had a lot civilian resources coming in every day to provide food, supplies and any number of necessary items. These civilians also delivered the good s and services to others thus providing a means to spread the influenza quite effectively.



Ports of entry, railway hubs and other transport zones experienced more cases than other areas. In 1918 there were no interstate highways and relatively few cars per capita. But the patterns were clear transport choke points then points where people congregated were the primary and secondary transmission points. These included passenger ship docking terminals, railway terminals, the bars, restaurants and hotels that normally pop up around these points followed by the hospitals, stores, schools, theaters and any enclosed place where people congregate.



The other thing that stuck me was the truly random nature of many of these transmission incidents. It was for many, a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is clear that random chance played a part in many of these incidents



So What Should We Do to Prepare?



Intelligence: An epidemic is not likely to give any warning and in fact for a true pandemic to occur, unless we work in the field, we probably will not know about it until it is well underway. Obviously governmental sources are useful to provide information. Yes (for those with tinfoil) it can be a source of possible disinformation but there are several sources that can be consulted and at least provide “official" information.



Links to sites:

http://www.google.org/flutrends/

http://www.who.int/csr/en/

http://www.cdc.gov/



Vaccinations: I know there are people who will disagree but in my opinion staying current on vaccinations is a great way to keep many of the more common nasties at bay. However, it is very unlikely that any illness for which there is a vaccine will turn into a pandemic. There may be a vaccine made later but initially there is unlikely to be one. Think about it; it is difficult for a bug to spread if there are a lot of people immune to it. Another pandemic is more likely to be a variation of one of the influenzas or other illness that does not presently have a vaccine. Thus vaccines while sensible are unlikely to offer any protection.



Hygiene: After reading about the pandemic I started paying more attention to washing hands and disinfecting eating utensils. However, I do not want either you or me to turn into Howard Hughes and demand Kleenex covering all our food. That said this seems to be a very effective way to reduce the probability of catching colds and other ordinary illnesses. You do not have to be obsessive about it but simple hand washing and basic sanitation will go a long way to preventing illness. Hand sanitizers are not really necessary and plain soap and water will work quite well . Though hand sanitizer is a good substitute if you do not have access to clean water.

Decontamination of food utensils is equally simple. The use of hot water and soap in the dishwasher is generally adequate to eliminate viruses like influenza. Use the hot dry option and that pretty much ensures that eating utensils will be safe for your use.



Clothing likewise is generally fairly easy to deal with as long as you have soap and hot water.



Avoidance: This is actually a great strategy. The CDC and WHO both suggest avoiding ill people, stay 6 to 10 feet away from them and in general avoid confined spaces where there are sick people. The problem with this strategy is that you have to stay locked up in your house and avoid airports, public transport (buses/trains/planes), supermarkets, shopping centers or otherwise anyplace where people congregate. That sounds more like a prison than a life. However it can be a good strategy to avoid infection. In the event of a breakout this strategy is IMO the key strategy to implement. A bug in is likely to be a very good defense. Obviously a bug in assumes you have supplies in your BIL to stay inside for a prolonged period.



Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): PPE for a pandemic would in many cases be a simple N-95 mask, glasses long sleeve shirt and pants with shoes and gloves. Obviously HAZMAT responders, lab techs, primary care providers and people in close proximity to sick people will need specific protocols. However for the average person this basic PPE and distance is likely to be effective. I would also note that the CDC in its protocols considers PPE the 4th in importance. The logic is that PPE is the last ditch defense and to be used only if other protocols fail.



Personally when I reviewed my equipment I included some disposable tyvek suits and booties. I also include PVC rain gear and boots which I would wear over my regular clothes to make decontamination easier by leaving the outer gear outside of my living areas. However, after reading the CDC protocols I now consider this overkill…but I will keep it in the kit.



I would note that the official opinion is that face masks may or may not be useful.



Some links:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 2242.story

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/masks.htm



These are masks that 3M recommends:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... XHL4K61Jgl



Other 3M Masks that would also be useful:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... gv%29&rt=d

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... gv%29&rt=d

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... 4402&rt=c3



I would note that while the evidence that a face mask can prevent infection in everyday situations is limited; the evidence is solid that when it comes to care givers. It has been demonstrated that the use of face masks cuts the exposure risk significantly when coupled with routine hand washing for caregivers taking care of family members. The key variable in face mask effectiveness was the lack of training and the resulting improper use of the mask. If you buy masks learn how to properly fit them and practice with them.



The key take away here is that N-95 masks are useful, but they are not a panacea. Simply washing your hands and avoiding touching your eyes, nose and mouth with your hands will likely be as useful as a mask. That is not to say you should not stock face masks; only that access to soap and clean water is also just as critical. If these are not available use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol..



Prepare to Get Sick : Obviously the primary goal is not get sick in a pandemic. That said the secondary goal is survive the illness if you do contract the illness. You also may be lucky enough to avoid the illness but that may not be case for a loved one. You may need to be the caregiver. Remember in a pandemic hospitals will be overloaded and medical care may not be available. It may also require that you go to a hospital or makeshift hospital filled with people sick from the pandemic only to wait several hours for access to an overworked medical professional who may not be able to do anything beyond providing palliative care. Thus if you are healthy you risk getting infected for no effective assistance. This is a poor choice.



A person who is contagious should be isolated from the rest of the family. They should be as far away from

the rest of the family as physical possible and comfortable. You should clean the sheets, clothing and dinnerware separately from the others. The caregiver should wear a mask and wash hands before and after providing care. The ill person should stay in the room or if they must leave the room (say to use the bathroom) make sure they are provided with a face mask to minimize the contamination to the rest of the house.



You should review your FAK to ensure that you have decongestants, expectorants and over the counter cold and flu medicine. These obviously treat only symptoms but that may be better than nothing. You may, after consulting with your doctor, want to acquire some Tami flu and other specific prescription drugs to take if you are exposed to likely risks. You should also have on hand basic hydration materials to combat dehydration. I assume you already have a decent FAK with analgesics and wide variety of medications, prescription and other wise. You want to be able to take care of an ill person for a minimum of 10 days, obviously more is better.



Other Useful Links



Cities With High levels of International Travelers and Thus More likely have Infected Travelers



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_ ... er_traffic



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ai ... rs_boarded





Other Useful Links:



Decontamination: Cleaning and hand washing:



http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi ... ne.0008987



EPA registered disinfectants:



http://www.epa.gov/oppad001/chemregindex.htm

http://www.epa.gov/oppad001/influenza-a ... t-list.pdf



Common Serious Infectious Diseases:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigellosis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_fever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meningitis



Homeopathic treatments for when there is no medical care available



http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/surefire.shtml

http://www.umm.edu/patiented/articles/h ... 0094_6.htm

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/featu ... ome?page=2



Oral rehydration for treating vomiting and diarrhea



http://rehydrate.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy

http://www.who.int/cholera/technical/en/

The Wilderness Survival Skills Everyone Should Know


The Wilderness Survival Skills Everyone Should Know

A few hours watching the Discovery Channel can prompt extreme survival fantasies involving frog licking and urine drinking, but what basic skills would you actually need to survive in the wilderness? Here's a look at the basics you need to become an adult Boy Scout straight from a cadre of survival experts. P

Blast from the past is a weekly feature at Lifehacker in which we revive old, but still relevant, posts for your reading and hacking pleasure. This week, we're talking about how to rough it on your own, or survive out in the wilderness if you go camping, get caught away from your friends, or just need to make it home in one piece. P

The key to surviving in the wilderness is preparation. But this post isn't about stockpiling food or preparing for disasters at home (although both are a good idea). This is about the skills and tricks you can learn and remember now that will help save your life if your car breaks down in the woods, you're lost while hiking, or a terrible disaster strands you in the wilderness. Before we get started on technique let's make a list of priorities to keep you alive and we'll go through them in more detail in a moment. P

How to Prepare for and Survive a Disaster

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan, followed by tsunami warnings in Hawaii and across much of the…Read more

Know Your Priorities P

I talked with survival teacher and founder of onPoint Tactical Kevin Reeve for help coming up with a list of priorities for survival in case of a disaster. This is what he suggests: P

  1. 1Immediate security: If the building is on fire, get out. If someone is shooting at you, move to cover. Whatever the immediate danger, get away from it. P
  2. 2First aid: Attend to any medical problems that may have happened in the original event. Check yourself for injuries and treat them. P
  3. 3Self protection: If you are at risk from predators, two-legged or four-legged, you must arm yourself. This might be a sharpened stick, a knife, machete, shotgun, or banjo. Just have something to attack the zombies with. P
  4. 4Physical needs (in order): Shelter, fire, water, food, and hygiene. P

It's also worth noting that nearly every survivalist, doctor, paramedic, and teacher recommends one key survival tool everyone should follow: positivity. It seems silly, but it can provide you with the mental endurance to stay safe in any number of situations. A recent study in Psychological Science also suggests that your own perception of illness and the potential for treatment has an effect on the outcome. In short, the idea of mind over matter can help you survive. P

Let's look at each of these in a little more detail, starting with your first priority after making sure you're not it in immediate danger: first aid. P

Learn to Perform Basic First Aid Techniques, Kit or No Kit P

Basic first aid is a good life skill to have in general, but it's an essential survival skill to have in case of an emergency. Knowing how to fix three common injuries will usually get you by. Performing these on yourself will probably cause some tears, but at least you will be able to move to safety. I talked with firefighter and trained paramedic Philip Carlson to find the best solutions if you're stranded without a proper first aid kit. P

Cut and Scrape First Aid P

In most cases, you can ignore small cuts, but keep the wound clean and watch it for infection. If the injury is deep and you can't stop the blood your last resort is a tourniquet to stop the flow of blood. Tourniquets should be at least one-inch wide (a strip of shirt, belt, anything like that will work) and tightened around the limb above the injury. Tighten the tourniquet until the bright red bleeding stops and cover the injury with any clean material you have. P

Mend Fractures and Dislocations P

If you dislocate a bone you need to get in back in place. For shoulders, you can roll on the ground or hit it against a hard surface to reset the bone. Kneecaps can be popped back in place by stretching your leg out and forcing it into the socket. For fractures, you need to find material to create a splint. In the woods, a couple sticks will do the trick. Stabilize the fractured bone with the sticks and tie them together with shoelaces to hold the brace in place. P

Treat Burns P

To care for a first (reddening) or second degree (blistering) burn from fire, remove any clothing and find lukewarm water to run over the burn or coat it in honey if it's available. Wrap the burn loosely with a wet piece of clothing. If water is not available, clean out debris, dirt, and any loose skin as best you can and find water as soon as possible. Keep the wound elevated whenever possible and do not open any blisters that may have formed. P

Self Protection P

The Wilderness Survival Skills Everyone Should KnowSExpand

While Liam Neeson can get by punching wolves in the face, that's generally not the best way to approach a dangerous situation. Instead, it's best to get away from the animal slowly. P

The Boy Scouts recommend a simple approach for wolves, coyotes, and cougars: face the animal and slowly back away from it. Don't play dead, run, or approach the animal. If you're cornered, make yourself as big as possible. Spread out your arms and make a lot of noise. If this still doesn't work, throw anything you can find at the animal. P

If it comes down to it, you might have to weather an attack. In his book, Emergency, author Neil Strauss provides a means to defend against wild dogs that can apply to other animals in an emergency: If the animal does attack, block its mouth with your non-dominant arm and smash the heel of your hand into its snout or hit it in the eyes. If you can temporarily disable the animal, run and find a tree to hide in before you attempt first aid. P

Photo by Dennis Matheson. P

Physical Needs: Build a Shelter and Start a Fire P

In order to survive, you need to maintain your body temperature. On one end of the spectrum, this means keeping warm, but you also need to know how to keep cool if you're caught in a desert. In either situation a shelter is your first order of business. P

Build a Shelter to Protect You from the Elements P

Even if you can start a fire with everything ranging from your glasses to a bottle of water, you're going to need a shelter at some point. Thankfully, the human body doesn't need the Hilton to survive, and your shelter only needs to meet two requirements: it has to block the elements and insulate for warmth. P

The A-frame shelter in the video above is the simplest to build in a hurry, but anything that gets you out of the snow, rain, or sun will work. Location and comfort are also two important details to consider, and Kevin Reeve has suggestions for both:http://youtu.be/kS5ZEBYdp-chttp://youtu.be/LpyqkTTqhbw P

Focus on finding a shelter that protects you from the ground, the wind, that insulates from the cold or heat, and protects you from rain and snow. A tarp or garbage bag is a lifesaver if stuffed with leaves or grass to form a wind/cold/rain barrier. P

Once your shelter is built, it's time to make a fire. P

How to Start a Fire with Nearly Anything P

Firefighters recommend keeping two things in mind when starting a fire: the wind direction and the surrounding area. A fire is an important part of your survival, but you don't want to catch the entire forest on fire just to attract the attention of rescuers. The USDA Forest Service recommends building your campfire away from overhanging branches, rotten stumps, logs, dry grass, and leaves. Fire might have been one of the first things we humans learned how to make, but that doesn't mean it's easy to start a fire. Let's look at a few tricks for using materials you might already have. P

  • ·Start a fire with eyeglasses: In order to properly start a fire with glasses, your best bet is a pair of far-sighted glasses, which better resemble a magnifying glass. To use eyeglasses, spit on the lens and use the lens to angle the sun at a pile of kindling (dry leaves, twigs, or Doritos all make great kindling). It will take a while, but your kindling will heat up enough and smolder. Carefully blow on the fire to start the flame. P
  • ·Start a fire with a bottle of water: The same idea as the eye glasses can apply to a bottle of water (or a condom or ice). Focus the sun's rays through the water so that it creates a single point of heat. Eventually, it will catch fire. P
  • ·Start a fire with you cell phone battery: The above two methods require a sunny day, but you won't always have that luxury. If you're stranded, there's a decent chance you have a lithium battery. It may be far-fetched, but if you also happen to have some steel wool you can create a short between the positive and negative terminals to cause a spark. If you don't have steel wool around, you can use your knife or any conductive material you can scavenge. P
  • ·Start a fire with sticks: This is by far the hardest method, but it's also one of the most likely scenarios you might find yourself in. This method requires you to quickly roll a stick on a log and use the friction to start a fire. This will take a while even if you have practice. The good news is that you can safely practice this in your own yard. It took me almost an hour to get a spark this way, but I leapt for joy when I did. P

Physical Needs: Learn How to Find Water and Feed Yourself P

Your fire-starting skills are great for keeping you warm, but you need to find something to eat and drink to keep you alive. Your first priority is water, so let's take a look at how you can find and sterilize water for drinking. P

How to Find Water to Drink P

In many parts of the country you can find water by following the sound of a flowing river, but that's not always the case. If you have trouble finding water, a few pieces of knowledge will help you on your way: P

  • ·Grazing animals usually head to water near dawn and dusk. Following them can often lead you to water. P
  • ·Flies and mosquitoes tend to stay within around 400 feet of water. P
  • ·Dew that hangs on grass in a field is an excellent source of water. You can collect this by running an extra piece of cloth through the grass as you walk. P
  • ·Stagnant water is not usually suitable to drink even if you can boil it. P
  • ·In the desert you can often find water if you dig up a dry creek bed. P
  • ·Once you find a source of water, bring it to a boil if possible. Even the cleanest of mountain streams can have microbes and parasites in the water. If boiling isn't not an option, search out water from a flowing stream or the dew on leaves. You can also create a filter by layering bark, stones, sand, and charcoal and running the water through the materials. Remember, no matter how hungry you are, water is more important to your survival. That said, you can settle your gurgling stomach as well. Let's look at how you can do it without killing yourself.

    Learn the Big Four to Always Find Edible Plants

    The Wilderness Survival Skills Everyone Should Know

    The easiest solution is to remember plants indigenous in most areas. Kevin Reeve suggests being familiar with four plants:

    1. 1Acorn from Oak: The entire nut is edible and they're easy to stockpile. P
    2. 2Pine: The nuts and inner bark of the tree are edible. You can also make pine needle tea. P
    3. 3Cattail: This is one of best options out there. The base stalk is like celery, the root and tuber can make flour, and the pollen is very healthy. P
    4. 4Grass The corm (aka the base) is starchy, but edible and filled with water and carbohydrates. P

    Learn the Universal Edibility Test

    You might have heard the old rule of thumb that you should follow animals around and eat what they eat, but that's not a foolproof method. In order to find if a plant is edible, you need to test it. You can follow the Universal Edibility Test, which requires you to place a small piece of plant against your lip, then your tongue, and finally in your whole mouth. Unfortunately, you have to wait for eight hours before you know if the plants safe to eat and it's still possible a plant can poison you.

    If you're more of a berry fan, you can follow a simple mnemonic from former Green Barret Myke Hawke to remember which berries are edible:

    White and yellow, kill a fellow. Purple and blue, good for you. Red… could be good, could be dead. P

    Like the edibility test, the mnemonic isn't fool proof, but it's useful if you have no other options.

    Physical Needs: The Basic Hygiene You Can Ignore (and What Not To)

    If you end up in a long-term survival situation you need to keep up with a few hygiene habits. For the most part, you can ignore a lot of it, but I spoke with Dr. Dan Weiswasser, a primary care physician in Massachusetts about a few hygienic issues you shouldn't ignore:

    If you're keen to pay attention to hygiene while stranded somewhere, I would primarily address dental care. Dental plaque can build up in a hurry, and dental infections are painful, dangerous, and expensive to repair. Brushing and flossing require relatively universal, rudimentary tools and can go a long way towards preventing such infections (you can make a toothbrush from birch or by just wiping your teeth with a clean piece of cloth). P

    Beyond that, I would say that a lot of hygiene consideration depends on what conditions are like where you are stranded. Bacteria and fungus flourish where it's moist, dark, and warm. If you're trapped in the jungle, you'll want to keep intertriginous areas (areas where skin touches skin such as the armpits, under breasts, in groin, between the toes, and in other skin folds) as dry and aired out as possible. Again, this can simply be an issue of wearing dry clothes. Baby powder or corn starch can also be helpful for absorbing moisture. P

    But what do you do when the call of nature is too strong and you need to find toilet paper? Kevin Reeve has a simple solution:

    As for primitive toilet paper, in the winter, a snowball is actually quite invigorating, but most of the time, leaves of a plant like mullein are the go-to method. Sometimes an unopened pine cone will work, but ouch! One of the keys to this is to squat not sit. This forces the cheeks apart and means that there will be far less cleaning necessary. P

    Navigation Methods to Help You Find Your Way Home

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5ZEB... If you're lost, the Boy Scouts recommend a simple mnemonic: STOP (Stop, Think, Observe, Plan). In most cases, you want to stay where you are and wait for help to come. If it starts to get late, you can build your shelter, start your fire and search for food. If help doesn't come, it's time to move on. The first thing you need to do is find north.

    In order to figure out your basic directions, remember that the sun sets in the west and rises in the east (just think about which coast starts their work day earlier if you struggle to remember this). There's also a few simple tricks that will help you find north quickly,

    Finding north is only half the battle. You still need to know which direction to head. If you have a general understanding of an area, head toward the nearest road or town. If you don't know the area, follow a water source downstream, or head toward a clearing where you can better signal for help.

    How to Get Rescued

    In order to get rescued, you need to know the most basic hand signals to alert a helicopter or plane you see pass overhead. Curiously, a wave is considered a sign to not land. Instead, if you see a helicopter or plane, form your arms in a "Y" as if you're ready to perform the Village People's "YMCA".

    If you have a signalling tool like a flare, flashlight, or mirror, make use of them the second you see a rescue helicopter. Reflect the sun off the mirror in the direction of the helicopter to attract its attention.

    If you hear rescuers in the distance but don't have any way to signal them, you can call in a deep voice. Normal natural sounds are usually a high pitch. Call out in a low tone so rescuers know you're a human.


    If everything goes well, you won't ever need these skills, but even if you don't venture into the woods on camping trips, the chance of a disaster in your city or being stranded on a road trip is always a possibility. With the above survival techniques you can get yourself safely out of any number of situations.

    Have some tips you'd like to share? Sound off in the comments.

    Photos by Thomas Quine, Daniel Oines, Andy Arthur, and Anthony Kelly.

211 176_Reply
Like
3.3k

Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects - DIY & Crafts


Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Make sure you like DIY and Crafts on Facebook. to be updated every time we post an amazing DIY project. Follow us on pinterest here DIYnCrafts Pinterest Profile.

Organizing is great. I mean, without it you have those episodes of never being able to find what you need or not knowing where to put things when you buy them. While there are tons of products that you can buy that are designed to help you to get your home organized, we like the DIY of doing things so we have a few ideas for organization tips that you can do yourself, from things around your home.
Article navigation

Hanging Makeup Organizer

Idea

Hanging Makeup Organizer - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

DIY Sliding Storage System On the Garage

Tutorial

DIY Sliding Storage System On the Garage - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use Coffee Canisters to Store Yarn

Tutorial

Use Coffee Canisters to Store Yarn - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use IKEA Grundtal to Organize your Crafts

Get it Here

Use IKEA Grundtal to Organize your Crafts - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Store Crafting Supplies on a on Pegboard

Idea

Store Crafting Supplies on a on Pegboard - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use Tension Rod to Hang Spray Bottles Under Your Sink.

Tutorial

Use Tension Rod to Hang Spray Bottles Under Your Sink. - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use a Magnetic Rack to Store Kitchen Utensils

Idea

Use a Magnetic Rack to Store Kitchen Utensils - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Tension Curtain Rods Divider for Cupboards and Other Flat Accessories

Idea

Tension Curtain Rods Divider for Cupboards and Other Flat Accessories - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use a Magazine Rack to Store Saran Wrap, Aluminum Foil, etc.

Idea

Use a Magazine Rack to Store Saran Wrap, Aluminum Foil, etc. - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Magazine Rack as Pot Lid Holder

Idea

Magazine Rack as Pot Lid Holder - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Article navigation
For instance, have you ever thought of using an old tension curtain rod for a cabinet divider? How about keeping your pot and pan lids neatly organized with a magazine rack? There are ideas for attaching undershelves in cabinets so that you can make good use of all of your cabinet space. Let’s face it, there are never enough cabinets in the house. There are organization tips that you can do yourself for every room in your house. They will help you to get your home more organized and have more space and free time to enjoy.

Subscribe Now for Free Updates and Exclusive Content

Name:
Email:
Submit Form
Filed Under: Home, Organization

Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Organizing is great. I mean, without it you have those episodes of never being able to find what you need or not knowing where to put things when you buy them. While there are tons of products that you can buy that are designed to help you to get your home organized, we like the DIY of doing things so we have a few ideas for organization tips that you can do yourself, from things around your home.
Article navigation

Hang Hangable Kitchen Utensils

Idea

Hang Hangable Kitchen Utensils - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Store Magnetic Spice Racks in Your Fridge

Idea

Store Magnetic Spice Racks in Your Fridge - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use Walls To Hang Kitchen Utensils – Play with Ideas and Create Decorative Walls

Use Walls To Hang Kitchen Utensils - Play with Ideas and Create Decorative Walls - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Organizing with a Pegboard

Idea

Organizing with a Pegboard - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Vertical Utensil Drawer

Vertical Utensil Drawer - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Organizing the Refridgerator

Idea

Organizing the Refridgerator - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Pull-out Baskets for Fridge Organization

Idea

Pull-out Baskets for Fridge Organization - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use Stackable Bins and Drawers

Idea

Use Stackable Bins and Drawers - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use Undershelves To Take Advantage of Vertical Space

Use Undershelves To Take Advantage of Vertical Space - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use Pant Hangers to Organize Your Boots

Tutorial

Use Pant Hangers to Organize Your Boots - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Article navigation
For instance, have you ever thought of using an old tension curtain rod for a cabinet divider? How about keeping your pot and pan lids neatly organized with a magazine rack? There are ideas for attaching undershelves in cabinets so that you can make good use of all of your cabinet space. Let’s face it, there are never enough cabinets in the house. There are organization tips that you can do yourself for every room in your house. They will help you to get your home more organized and have more space and free time to enjoy.

Filed Under: Home, Organization

Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Organizing is great. I mean, without it you have those episodes of never being able to find what you need or not knowing where to put things when you buy them. While there are tons of products that you can buy that are designed to help you to get your home organized, we like the DIY of doing things so we have a few ideas for organization tips that you can do yourself, from things around your home.
Article navigation

Wall/Closet Attached Crown Molding to Organize Shoes

Idea

Wall/Closet Attached Crown Molding to Organize Shoes - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Labeled Hangers for Similar Clothing Items

Idea

Labeled Hangers for Similar Clothing Items - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Turn all the Hangers in Your Closet Backwards

Idea

Turn all the Hangers in Your Closet Backwards - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Divider Shelves for Organized Sweaters and Shirts

Tutorial

Divider Shelves for Organized Sweaters and Shirts - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Store Belts on a Sliding Rack

Get the Sliding Rack from Amazon here

Store Belts on a Sliding Rack - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use a Hanger to Store Eyewear

Idea

Use a Hanger to Store Eyewear - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Store your Sunglasses on a Wall attached Ribbon

Idea

Store your Sunglasses on a Wall attached Ribbon - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Hang Handbags Using Shower Curtain Hooks

Tutorial

Hang Handbags Using Shower Curtain Hooks - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Keep Your Jewelry in a Closet Using Command Hooks

Tutorial

Keep Your Jewelry in a Closet Using Command Hooks - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Nice Shoe Storage Trick

Idea

Nice Shoe Storage Trick - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Article navigation
For instance, have you ever thought of using an old tension curtain rod for a cabinet divider? How about keeping your pot and pan lids neatly organized with a magazine rack? There are ideas for attaching undershelves in cabinets so that you can make good use of all of your cabinet space. Let’s face it, there are never enough cabinets in the house. There are organization tips that you can do yourself for every room in your house. They will help you to get your home more organized and have more space and free time to enjoy.

Filed Under: Home, Organization

Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Organizing is great. I mean, without it you have those episodes of never being able to find what you need or not knowing where to put things when you buy them. While there are tons of products that you can buy that are designed to help you to get your home organized, we like the DIY of doing things so we have a few ideas for organization tips that you can do yourself, from things around your home.
Article navigation

Keep Your Boots Straight by Filling Them With Pool Noodle

Idea

Keep Your Boots Straight by Filling Them With Pool Noodle - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Store Matching Sheets in Pillowcases.

Idea

Store Matching Sheets in Pillowcases. - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Tweezers Attached With a Magnet

Idea

Tweezers Attached With a Magnet - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Attach Hygiene Tools to a Magnetic Rack

Idea

Attach Hygiene Tools to a Magnetic Rack - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Store Appliances Easily Using a PVC Pipe

Tutorial

Store Appliances Easily Using a PVC Pipe - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Store Appliances Easily Using a PVC Pipe - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Mason Jars as Bathroom Wall Storage

Mason Jars as Bathroom Wall Storage - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Glass Bottles as Bracelet and Ponytail Holders

Idea

Glass Bottles as Bracelet and Ponytail Holders - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use a Magnetic Palette for an Organized Makeup Holder

Get the Palette here

Use a Magnetic Palette for an Organized Makeup Holder - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use a Shelf Over Bathroom Door for Rarely Used Things

Idea

Use a Shelf Over Bathroom Door for Rarely Used Things - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Article navigation
For instance, have you ever thought of using an old tension curtain rod for a cabinet divider? How about keeping your pot and pan lids neatly organized with a magazine rack? There are ideas for attaching undershelves in cabinets so that you can make good use of all of your cabinet space. Let’s face it, there are never enough cabinets in the house. There are organization tips that you can do yourself for every room in your house. They will help you to get your home more organized and have more space and free time to enjoy.

Filed Under: Home, Organization

Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Organizing is great. I mean, without it you have those episodes of never being able to find what you need or not knowing where to put things when you buy them. While there are tons of products that you can buy that are designed to help you to get your home organized, we like the DIY of doing things so we have a few ideas for organization tips that you can do yourself, from things around your home.
Article navigation

Use Baskets and Rails to Store Bathroom Accessories

Tutorial

Use Baskets and Rails to Store Bathroom Accessories - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

DIY Magnetic Makeup Board

Tutorial

DIY Magnetic Makeup Board - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

DIY Pressing Surface That’ll Replace Your Ironing Board

Tutorial

DIY Pressing Surface That'll Replace Your Ironing Board - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Repurpose a Shoe Organizer to Store Cleaning Supplies

Repurpose a Shoe Organizer to Store Cleaning Supplies - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Washer and Dryer Shelf with Organized Laundry

Tutorial

Washer and Dryer Shelf with Organized Laundry - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Hang a Ladder for Air Drying Clothes

Hang a Ladder for Air Drying Clothes - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

DIY Ball Garage Storage

Tutorial

DIY Ball Garage Storage - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use a Pegboard with Hooks to Organize Sport Gears

Idea

Use a Pegboard with Hooks to Organize Sport Gears - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

DIY Mason Jar Garage Organizer

Tutorial

DIY Mason Jar Garage Organizer - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Pick an Ottoman with Built in Storage Function

Pick an Ottoman with Built in Storage Function - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Article navigation
For instance, have you ever thought of using an old tension curtain rod for a cabinet divider? How about keeping your pot and pan lids neatly organized with a magazine rack? There are ideas for attaching undershelves in cabinets so that you can make good use of all of your cabinet space. Let’s face it, there are never enough cabinets in the house. There are organization tips that you can do yourself for every room in your house. They will help you to get your home more organized and have more space and free time to enjoy.

Filed Under: Home, Organization

Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Organizing is great. I mean, without it you have those episodes of never being able to find what you need or not knowing where to put things when you buy them. While there are tons of products that you can buy that are designed to help you to get your home organized, we like the DIY of doing things so we have a few ideas for organization tips that you can do yourself, from things around your home.
Article navigation

Store DVDs in Boxes

Store DVDs in Boxes - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Store your Records Decorative

Idea

Store your Records Decorative - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Use a Cable Organizer

Cable Organizers on Amazon.com

Use a Cable Organizer - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Attach Shoe Holders to Cabinets For Extra Storage Space

Idea

Attach Shoe Holders to Cabinets For Extra Storage Space - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Make Sure to Repurpose Everything (paint cans, tins, mason jars, and plastic containers) for Future Storage Usage

Idea

Make Sure to Repurpose Everything (paint cans, tins, mason jars, and plastic containers) for Future Storage Usage - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Example Makeup Organization Placement

Idea

Example Makeup Organization Placement - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Cute DIY Hanging Makeup Organization

Tutorial

Cute DIY Hanging Makeup Organization - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Divide Your Drawers

Tutorial

Divide Your Drawers - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Awesome idea!

Tutorial

Awesome idea! - Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects

Article navigation
For instance, have you ever thought of using an old tension curtain rod for a cabinet divider? How about keeping your pot and pan lids neatly organized with a magazine rack? There are ideas for attaching undershelves in cabinets so that you can make good use of all of your cabinet space. Let’s face it, there are never enough cabinets in the house.

There are organization tips that you can do yourself for every room in your house. They will help you to get your home more organized and have more space and free time to enjoy.

Filed Under: Home, Organization

34 Ingenious Ways To De-Clutter Your Entire Life


34 Ingenious Ways To De-Clutter Your Entire Life

Time to get ruthless. posted on Oct. 4, 2013, at 2:01 p.m.

BuzzFeed Staff
Follow
17k
.
.
.
.

1. When buying electronics, download the manual and store it in the cloud.

If you’re positive you won’t be returning it, you can safely discard the manual. Uploading an electronic copy to the virtual cloud of your choice keeps you covered in case the manufacturer stops producing the item and takes the manual down from their site.

Read more here about archiving your manuals into iBooks (if you have an iPad).

2. Enlist the rule of five every time you clean.

Whenever you’re cleaning a room, get rid of at least five items, whether it’s a piece of trash, an old magazine, or just something you haven’t used in ages.

3. Velcro your remotes to the side of the coffee table or your TV.

4. Hang your bags with shower curtain hooks.

The hooks take up less space than hangers. And it’s a great way to compartmentalize the things in your closet that don’t have a place — scarves, belts, socks.

5. Utilize your under-desk space.

It’s a great place to keep organized baskets.

6. Make the kids a stuffed animal pen with bungee cords.

They’re easier to find, easier to put away. And your child gets a kick out of having a zoo-like pen for all the stuffed animals. Get the directions here.

7. When cleaning the bedroom, always make the bed first.

There are a myriad of reasons. 1) It serves as a mission control center for organizing and folding, 2) you’ll be less likely to climb into bed and take a nap in the middle of your cleaning sesh, and 3) your messy stuff will look weird and out of place once the bed is all neat.

8. On a super hot day, clean out your fridge and freezer.

It’ll feel less like work and more like a treat.

9. Limit your closet to 40 hangers.

Sometimes you need hard and fast rules to keep organized. Here is a great resource for donation places where your clutter will do good.

10. Or follow this flow chart.

11. Or simplify it to this one question:

12. Corral cords with a sock.

13. Use compartmentalized boxes for small things you need to keep organized, like batteries.

14. Declutter your Facebook feed.

 

Tip #1: When you see pesty updates from Candy Crush or Spotify which you seriously could care less about, hover your mouse over the post and click “Hide all stories from ______"

Tip #2: Make friend lists. Only follow your close friends. This also comes in handy later on when you want to post an event or news item that you only want your legit pals to see.

15. Fold your bedsheets up and stuff them in a matching pillowcase.

16. Employ the “Crap Basket" system for your family.

Everyone gets a crap basket. If you see or collect anyone’s crap throughout the house, it goes in that person’s basket. And then they’re responsible for putting it back into their rooms.

17. Hang your mail holder on the side of a table or kitchen counter.

It’ll keep the clutter off your precious visible surfaces.

18. Always open your mail next to the recycling bin so you can immediately purge unwanted junk mail.

19. Hang your lesser-used cords on Command hooks on the inside of your cupboards.

Command hooks are magical.

20. For the garage or backyard, hang a basket so you can wrap the hose around it and keep the sprinkler inside the bucket.

21. Run a power strip through the back of a nightstand so you can charge your gadgets out of sight.

Most nightstands with drawers should have a gap in the back.

22. When you buy a new shirt, donate two from your closet.

Or just do the one-in one-out rule for ALL possessions. ESPECIALLY if you’re a shopaholic.

23. Put your cosmetics into palettes.

You’ll feel so good after you do this. It’ll make getting ready so much faster, too. Z Palettes makes customizeable magnetic ones.

24. Use a pegboard and zip ties underneath your desk to keep your wires neat.

 

Check out the before and after here.

25. Keep your discount cards virtually on your phone with the Key Ring app.

 

Get it here. And if you don’t have a smartphone, hole punching your discount and gift cards and adding them to a single keyring can keep your purse organized.

26. Find ways to get rid of your old books.

1. Donate any children’s books that the kids have outgrown to a local library.

2. Give books away to family and friends you believe would enjoy them.

3. Sell your old textbooks for a little extra cash.

4. For cookbooks, only keep the ones with a large number of recipes you plan on making. If there’s only a couple useable recipes, photocopy them and keep them in a binder and give the cookbook away.

27. Keep your cleaning supplies in a mobile bucket caddy.

You (or anyone else) will be able to go room to room to clean very easily with this handy bucket.

28. Use hooks, not towel bars.

They’re much more likely to keep your towels off the floor.

29. Wrap the cords around your unused appliances and secure with velcro.

It’ll keep your spaces neater.

30. Get rid of your board game and puzzle boxes and keep them in bins instead.

 

31. Identify your clutter traps. Then divide and conquer.

Is there a certain place where everyone just dumps their stuff out of sheer laziness? Is it the entryway? Under the kitchen sink? A junk drawer? Identify each of the clutter traps and dedicate an hour each weekend to each one. See if there’s an easy way to compartmentalize the stuff you really need while throwing out the things you can bear to part with.

32. Use your iPhone or iPad as a pocket scanner with Genius Scan.

You can keep all your documents electronically without having to invest in a scanner. Get the app here.

33. Limit your dish sets to two or three more than the required place settings.

This keeps your dishwasher from getting insane, and if you don’t have a dishwasher, household members will be more prone to actually do the dishes if there are none available to use. And you have enough extra place settings for guests.

34. Spread your minimalist lifestyle by only giving gifts that people can use.

Take a friend out to eat for their birthday. Give a coupon for a free oil change as a Christmas gift. A bottle of wine is always handy. This cuts down on lame gifts and people will learn to reciprocate similarly.

Looking for more life-saving tips like these? Sign up for the BuzzFeed DIY newsletter!





.
.

Entryway Project :: Board & Batten Detailed How-to » Casa de Lewis


2.20.12

Entryway Project :: Board & Batten Detailed How-to

Since so many of you asked for details on the entryway, I decided I would just write up a post with the how to. Overall, Jami’s entryway was my inspiration but I also looked at this Centsational Girl blog post to get some extra tips. We didn’t follow anything exactly, so I’ve included the basic steps we took below. We were kind of flying by the seat of our pants!

Measure, measure, measure! I went over our calculations a million times to make sure we had this correct! Here are some basic details concerning the measurements -

 As you can see in the above photo, we bought 1″ x 3″ and 1″ x 6″ pieces of pine. FYI – a 1″ x 6″ piece of wood is actually only about 5.5″ across and .75″ thick and a 1″ x 3″ is only about 2.5″ across. Consider this when taking your measurements (we learned this the hard way)! The 1 x 3 boards were used in the middle and for the shelf. Every other board is 1 x 6. We had Lowe’s cut each piece to the specific length that we needed it. Then we came home and sanded any pieces that were still a bit too long.

 

Most of the tutorials that I have seen for board and batten call for a nail gun and MDF boards. We weren’t ready to dish out the $$ for a nail gun, so the man at Lowe’s actually suggested that we use pine (which is much lighter than MDF) and just use our drill to secure it to the wall. The price was about the same for pine as MDF, so we went for it. We started at the bottom, using our level to guide us, and drilled our boards to the wall. We tried to find a stud whenever possible and we also tried to drill the screw far enough into the board so that it would be flush with the board.

We used another 1 x 3 board to create a shelf on top. We just nailed this piece into place. We also picked up a piece of primed base moulding and nailed it right under the shelf.

I went back and filled all of the holes from drilling in the screws with wood filler.

We then sanded down those areas to make them look as flush as possible with the wood. I also went through and caulked any tiny spaces that were still visible between the wall and the boards.

After you’ve waited the allotted time for the caulk and wood filler to dry, it’s paint time! I ended up spending more time painting because our first choice of white paint just didn’t look right. Once we got a better white, I probably painted three coats. And that’s it!

Add some hooks and cute photos to your shelf!

I hope this answered all your questions! If you left your email address on the last post you should’ve received an email from me! Happy Monday:)

________________________________________________________________________________

Looking for my photography website? Click here!

.

.

April 20, 2012 - 9:56 am

Michelle - I luv luv luv your entryway project!! I was just wondering if you would mind Sharing about how much the cost of the project was? Thanks

.
April 21, 2012 - 4:22 am

admin - Hi there! Thanks! So I didn’t add it all up, but it really wasn’t too expensive. I want to say the lumber was about $60 and that was the most expensive part. I had to buy caulk, paint, wood filler, and the hooks, but I am guessing that was all around $40. So about $100?!

.
June 14, 2012 - 10:54 am

Katie - your entry looks awesome! it has inspired me to take on a similar project at my house :) how high is your shelf? starting to draw out my measurements and trying to figure out exactly how tall to make it all. thanks!!

.
June 14, 2012 - 11:13 am

Sada - Hi Katie! It’s approx 62 inches up I believe…

.
June 15, 2012 - 9:28 pm

Sarah - Do you have this continued on the other side of the hallway?

.
June 17, 2012 - 4:36 pm

Sada - Sarah – No, it’s just on this one wall.

.
June 18, 2012 - 8:34 pm

renea - How exactly did you nail the shelf on the top? This is amazing!!!

.
June 19, 2012 - 1:06 pm

Sada - Hi Renea! We nailed the shelf into the piece of wood directly underneath it. So we had to place the nails toward the back of the shelf closer to the wall so that it would go down through the horizontal piece of board underneath it. We probably used 5 or 6 nails total. Does that help?

.
June 22, 2012 - 11:23 am

Karen - This is so awesome!

Can you tell me how wide it is, end to end? I have a space very similar to yours at our entryway, but I think the wall might be longer… Wondering if it will still look ok with a few more of those 15inch spaces?

Thanks!

.
June 22, 2012 - 12:24 pm

Sada - Karen – the wall is approx 80 inches long or 6.75 feet. I think it would still look great on a longer wall!

.
June 24, 2012 - 10:47 pm

Gracelyn Fullilove - I don’t know if you remember/recognize me… I’m Jesse Fullilove’s sister, and sister-in-law to Kourtney Sides Fullilove. I found your blog through Pinterest – link to your entryway remodel – which is amazing by the way!! I recognized your picture and thought “I know her!"…. really great website, and amazing photography. I am so inspired! I love DIY projects and hope to one day have a site like yours, well put together! Just wanted to say hi and tell you I really love your style and appreciate your posts!! Best to you!!

.
June 24, 2012 - 10:56 pm

Sada - Hi Gracelyn!! I definitely remember you! Thanks so much, so great to hear from you! :)

.
June 25, 2012 - 8:57 am

Rebecca - This is GREAT – and exactly what I need for the hall to my garage since I don’t have room for a mudroom. We actually put all th wood up yesterday, not we jsut need to paint. Thank you for the awesome idea and instructions and I hope ours turns out looking as great as yours!

And FWIW to others, our wall is about twice as long, so we doubled the amount of space between. I’ll post picutes on my blog with a link back here once its all done.

.
June 25, 2012 - 9:01 am

Sada - Awesome Rebecca!! Can’t wait to see it! :)

.
June 30, 2012 - 4:55 pm

Deborah - Excellent DYI project and very well written! Thanks for the details. This will look fantastic in my farm-style house!

.
June 30, 2012 - 10:01 pm

Sada - Thanks Deborah!

.
July 7, 2012 - 6:42 pm

Summer - Just curious, how high are your ceilings? We have high ceilings and I’m trying to judge how high I should go up the wall to look proportionate. Thanks!

.
July 31, 2012 - 9:00 pm

Lindsey - I am sitting here with my pad of paper, calculator, pen and measuring tape….scratching my head! Sound familiar? How high is your shelf? When i added up your measurements I get 60 inches? Is that right? I feel like that is low….help!!!!

.
July 31, 2012 - 9:04 pm

Sada - Lindsey – Haha! No 60in is right! I’ve seen people go higher though.

.
August 2, 2012 - 12:14 am

Sue - I’m in the “waiting for the caulk and spackle to dry"-stage now – I adapted your design to fit our space, so I’ve got 45″ across and 48″ tall – works perfectly for our wall! :)

Don’t be afraid to monkey with dimensions, people who want to try this – mine is smalled than the Lewis’ B-B project, but it works for our space. :) I did goof and get two boards cut too small, but thankfully, I had some leftover 1×3 from which we cut the proper-sized pieces. :) *phew*

.
August 2, 2012 - 1:41 pm

Sada - Awesome Sue! Thanks for sharing :)

.
August 13, 2012 - 11:29 pm

Debbie - what type of white paint did you end of using? was it a high gloss? We are doing a similar project in our dining room

.
August 16, 2012 - 1:07 pm

Sada - It was actually just a semi gloss. Since I painted the whole lower half of the wall and the board and batten I actually just used leftover white paint that we already had…but I’m sure high gloss would look nice for the trim pieces!

.
August 17, 2012 - 11:14 am

Remodeling | Pearltrees - [...] To Wainscoting Entryway Project :: Board & Batten Detailed How-to » Casa de Lewis Hola peeps! Welcome to Casa de Lewis. We are twenty somethings who got married in 2010, bought a [...]

.
August 20, 2012 - 8:13 pm

kelly - i knew the moment i saw this blog post that that is what i wanted in our new (to us) house. we are renovating and this is so perfect, my son just knocked it out in a morning and i’ll paint it and decorate it! thank you soooo much for posting this. i LOVE IT!!

.
August 20, 2012 - 8:18 pm

Sada - Awesome! So glad it worked for you Kelly! :)

.
August 23, 2012 - 9:07 pm

Kathryn - Hi there! Ok I really do loooove this and have a very similar spot at my front door that I’d love to build this for. However I am scratching my head about what to do with the existing baseboard? I notice yours is not there – did you remove it first? If so, what did you then do to the existing baseboard at the left and right to make it “match up"?

.
August 24, 2012 - 9:49 am

Sada - Yeah, we took ours off but a lot of people just keep it and build off of it. We made the corner section match up with our new piece of baseboard.

.
September 1, 2012 - 10:56 am

Faye - This is beautiful and you make it look so easy! I am definitely going to make this a weekend project at my house soon. Thank you for sharing :)

.
September 2, 2012 - 10:33 pm

Sada - Thanks Faye! It was pretty easy! If we can do it, you can do it! :)

.
September 8, 2012 - 8:12 am

Dee - I have to say I have this SAME blank wall when I walk into my house, my fiance and I are looking for ways to update an older home- THIS IS PERFECT!

.
September 23, 2012 - 11:11 pm

Lindsey - We JUST finished painting our new entry wall, and I LOVE it!! I’m so glad that I came across this project on PInterest! We did make 1 little change… we used beadboard, and it looks fantastic! Also, for the person who asked about the baseboard, we removed ours, and then put the trim (not the full baseboard) back up so that it would match the rest of our living room. We have one LARGE living/entry area. Hope that helps. Now… our paint does not look right either! I’m thinking we might need a warmer white rather than a bright white. Do you know what color you used? Thank you again!! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!

.
October 15, 2012 - 10:29 am

Elizabeth - Can you please let me know what paint you used. Thank you! : )

.
October 19, 2012 - 9:45 pm

Jasmine - Where did you get your hardware/coat hooks? How much were they? We are starting a similar project tomorrow! Thanks for all the measurements and tips. Very helpful!

.
October 23, 2012 - 12:18 am

Adrienne - I am pretty much obsessed with this look! Love it! I am all about adding more organization to any space I have and this does it in such a fun, stylish way. I am by no means a home decorator so my question is, would you ever put the wainscoting up on both sides of the entry walls, hooks on one side, and a small entry table with a mirror above the table on the other side? I’m looking for your honest opinion so if its a terrible idea, say so! Any other ideas of inspiration would be much appreciated, too! Thanks!!

.
October 24, 2012 - 11:33 pm

Sada - Adrienne – I think that would be a great idea! I wish I had a longer entryway in order to add a small table, etc.

.
November 2, 2012 - 6:34 pm

Lauren - Hello! We are getting ready to attempt this same project on a wall in our mudroom that gets a lot of traffic, and it’s also where we hang our coats; did you do anything to anchor the coat hooks to the pieces of pine batten? I’ve been trying to figure out how to ensure they are stable, and since it’s not drilled into the wall, I’m having a hard time figuring that out!

.
January 2, 2013 - 9:45 am

Christy - I am thinking of doing this to both walls of my entry way, but one of those walls continues down into my living room. I thinkin continuing the look into ,y living room would look okay. I wouldn’t put the hooks down that far, but I would definitely do the pics. Do you think this would look ok?

.
January 2, 2013 - 9:52 am

Sada - Christy – I think it could work! What if you only put hooks up on the side that is shorter? Then the longer side can just be more for show and a picture ledge?

.
January 16, 2013 - 1:38 pm

katy - Love , love , love this! Perfect solution to an entryway that has no closet! My husband and I just built it with some modifications to fit our space and we couldn’t be happier with it! thanks to you and your fabulous inspiration.

.
January 22, 2013 - 5:51 pm

Samantha - Oh I hope you will see this and reply. I have a desperate question! I am sitting here scratching my brain on how to make this work. I see that you said your entry way is 80″ and mine is 81″. If each end board is 12″, how did you fill the entire 68″? You said the 1×6 is actually only a 1×5.5 or 66″. That leaves a few inches where there would be a gap. How did you fill that gap? Also, if the 1×6 is only .75″ thick, how do the 1×3 meet it so perfectly? Did you have them shaved down to .75 also? Or do they stick out over the 1×6?

.
January 22, 2013 - 5:53 pm

Samantha - Oh, I meant each end board is 6″ for a total of 12″. Thank you!

.
March 10, 2013 - 6:24 pm

Glenda - Did this as a Sunday project. Looks fantastic. Love love it. It does take a Lot of measuring I’m so pleased with the results

.
March 15, 2013 - 1:41 pm

Nichole - Odd question for you.. how do your pictures and things stay on the shelf without falling every time you shut the door? We just put our version of this up and I’m wondering about setting frames and other “pretties"on the shelf. Thanks so much for all the info…it’s been invaluable getting this project done!

.
March 15, 2013 - 9:46 pm

Sada - Nichole – a few people have asked this question, but for some reason, we don’t seem to have a problem with it. Nothing has ever fallen off the shelf. Our front door doesn’t really slam hard enough I don’t think? Sorry, I am no help! You could test it out and if you think something might fall, take extra measures to secure everything on the shelf :)

.
March 16, 2013 - 10:14 pm

katie - I LOVE this. I want to do it behind my door, and i think i might do it my kids bathroom too, and maybe the laundry room too, hmmmm where else i could use this in the house :) hahahaha. endless possibilities.

.
March 23, 2013 - 5:39 am

Meghan - Forgive me if someone has already asked this, but would this look ok if the lower horizontal board were placed above existing baseboard or should the baseboard need to be removed? We live in a newer house and I think my hubby would be somewhat hesitant to remove it…we’re not really the handy type, but I’m trying to be!

.
May 25, 2013 - 6:51 am

jma - I copied your project into my front entryway and my cost was much lower. I got my wood, not pine, at the local hardware store for $15 in total. I already had caulking. The primer, I used Zinsser, was $15. and then only had to put on one coat of white paint to finish it off and already had a 1/4 gallon leftover from another project. I bought my hooks from a dollar store for $1. each…..totalling…roughly $40.00. Thanks.My entryway look great:)

.
July 23, 2013 - 7:15 pm

Entry Makeover | a dash of cinnamon - [...] I wanted to simply remove the door and build a bench as I had seen on The House of Smiths.  Then Casa de Lewis gave me the idea to add board and batten and hooks to the wall next to the closet.  They made it [...]

.
October 17, 2013 - 8:49 am

.:karen:. - Beautiful! I’m also going to try to make this my own on a 45″ section of wall in our townhome. It’ll be a bit more difficult because we have a vent on that wall, and not much room between the wall and door, but it’ll still help in the long run, I feel. This seems very achievable to me. Have my plans already laid out.

My question is what kind of screws did you get? Just wood screws? And what size was suggested to fit through the .75″ of wood with enough grip to bite into the drywall and hold in place?

Thanks in advance! Found you on Pinterest and so glad I did and that you also referenced your inspiration post too! :)

.
October 22, 2013 - 8:05 am

Stacie - I am thinking of doing this in my laundry room/mudroom. I am impatient, so I was thinking thatI may just use my paint sprayer and spray the paint on, what do you think?

.
October 22, 2013 - 4:15 pm

Sada - Stacie – I think that would work!

.
November 5, 2013 - 6:21 pm .
November 21, 2013 - 11:44 am

Amber - Going to make this a Thanksgiving weekend project in between all the shopping :) For paint, what kind did you use. Gloss, semigloss, flat and did you use the same kind for the trim and the wall?

Thanks!

.
November 21, 2013 - 3:30 pm

Sada - Amber – I’m fairly positive it is eggshell because we used what we already had on hand for the most part.

.
November 22, 2013 - 10:01 am

Kristen - I love this and want to do it in my entry way! I just painted the walls grey and I need some white in there to lighten everything up! I am thinking of doing it on this wall, but I am not sure if it will look “right" with the stairs right there? Any thoughts?

http://s805.photobucket.com/user/Ventura_Resorts/library/Entry%20Way

.
November 22, 2013 - 10:18 am

Sada - I definitely think you can still make it work. Just think of it as its own area separate from the stairs and the board and batten will create that division.

.
November 26, 2013 - 3:00 pm

Amy - I just found your blog through Pinterest and I am hooked! You have such a beautiful home! Can you tell me the paint color of your original blank wall? I am trying to find a light color that will have a subtle contrast with our white trim, but will still feel more white than beige. Yours looks like just what I am looking for!

.
December 20, 2013 - 11:54 am

SB - We moved into our new home almost a year ago. Lots I family coming in for Christmas next week and need a coat rack! We may be crazy but we are going to tackle this project in our home tomorrow! Thank you for the inspiration!!!

.
March 10, 2014 - 1:39 pm

Lauren - Hi there! I’m attempting this in my entryway but am stuck on how to meet up the existing baseboards on the right and left… I know someone already asked but I don’t understand what you mean by “making them meet up." Can you tell me how you did it? PLEASE & THANK YOU!

.
March 24, 2014 - 8:07 pm

Allison - We just finished copying your idea in our entry way, and I’m just in love. If I could figure out how to post a pic, I would.

Thank you! The method worked perfectly and was a much needed solution in our home.

.

Your email is never published or shared. Required fields are marked *

Name *

Email *

Website

Comment


Learn to Store Electronics, Medication, and Other Items Properly


Learn to Store Electronics, Medication, and Other Items Properly

Everyone is need of storing items at one point or another, but do you know what to put it in or at what temp you should try and keep it? This infographic from Next Door Self Storage gives you the rundown on storing anything from food to electronics. P

Many of us assume that a lot of things can just be tossed in a box or plastic container and it will be alright, but things like beauty products and medication require more particular instructions. It's important to take things like necessary insulation into consideration, and be aware of what the chances are something might break or get disfigured. Don't get caught ruining your items when you think you're putting them away for safekeeping. P

Storage Unlocked: How to Store Everything | Next Door Self Storage via Visual.ly P

Learn to Store Electronics, Medication, and Other Items ProperlySExpand

11 15_Reply
Like
48