For the past week, I have been giving a lot of consideration to what I would personally do if there was even the slightest hint of an Ebola pandemic in the United States. You would think that the process I engage would be easy since I live on an island that is only accessible by ferry, private vessel, or small aircraft. But, as with all things, preparedness, there are always unique circumstances that come into play in any disaster and a pandemic is no different.
The risk, as I see it, is that I live in a popular tourist destination. By popular I mean that the population swells up to three-fold during the summer months as visitors from around the world come to view the scenic beauty of the waterways as well as the bald eagles and Orca whales. This translates into possible exposure from tourists who are carriers showing no outward sign of sickness.
In the article Seven Facts You Should Know About Ebola, I touched upon some pandemic preparedness basics. From the ten thousand foot level, here were my suggestions:
Be Prepared for a Pandemic!
How to prepare for a pandemic? The usual: plenty of food, water, first aid supplies,face masks, and something to keep your mind occupied in the event you are confined to close quarters. Examples include books, playing cards, and board games. I also recommend essential oils but more about that in a moment.
You should also be prepared to physically isolate yourself. If a pandemic is even rumored, isolate yourself from large crowds, avoid commercial travel, and head out to your bug-out-location if you have one. If you work outside the home, plan to telecommute if you can and if not, take some vacation time. Above all, use common sense and keep a level head about you.
Going beyond those basics, today I am getting up close and personal by sharing my plan. Having never experienced a pandemic, I can not say whether my approach is right or not. Instead I am applying the best common sense I can muster so that I can be ready to hunker down in place if and when the time comes.
7 Things to Do to Prepare to Hunker Down in Place
1. Plan to Stay Put. This means no travel. Air travel is totally out of the picture as is travel to urban areas or anywhere else more than 20 miles outside the radius of my home. This is pretty easy since travel 20 miles from where I live would land me in the sea.
2. Inventory Sick Room Supplies. My existing sick room supplies include both N95 and N100 masks, disposable gloves, disinfectants (bleach, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide), nitrile gloves, and rubber gloves. I also have a large supply of plastic sheeting material, tarps, duct tape and disposable shower caps to use to cover my feet. This is all in addition to a comprehensive first aid kit with the usual bandages, pain killers, and antibiotics.
3. Purchase Additional Sick Room Supplies: After inventorying what I have on hand, I have orderedprotective eyewear (goggles) and disposable clothing. I have also ordered more essential oils to both diffuse and apply topically in an attempt to boost my immune system.
4. Create an Island of Physical Isolation: At the very first inkling that the risk of pandemic is real, I plan to physically isolate myself from social interaction with anyone outside of my home. This should not be too difficult since my home includes a small outdoor deck on the second floor; large enough for Tucker to do his business and for Shelly and I to get a bit of fresh air.
5. Mobilize Other Preps: I have pulled my “portable potty” out of storage and have also stocked my day-to-day pantry with plenty of canned goods and freeze-dried items from deep storage. I have plenty of food, water, disposable eating utensils, heavy duty garbage bags, toilet paper, soap, pet supplies, personal hygiene items and prescription meds to get by for a long period of physicalisolation.
6. Deep Cleaning: I hate housekeeping as much as the next person but now is not the time to use the good-enough method of housecleaning. We have done a deep cleaning of our home and plan to keep it that way.
7. Avoid Boredom and Cabin Fever: In the unlikely event that we really do need to hunker down in place, I have removed the board games and dance videos from storage so that they are easily accessible. Missing from my collection are some 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles; they are something I need to purchase.
The bottom line? I plan to stay put, socially isolate myself, and use my preps to limit my exposure to anything and anyone outside the four walls of my home. Remember what I said earlier about common sense?
Suggested Reading
For suggested reading, get yourself a copy of the Survival Medicine Handbook by Joe and Amy Alton. Another good book to have on hand is Emergency Air: for Shelter-in-Place Preppers and Home-Built Bunkers by F.J. Bohan. The article Social Distancing as a Means to Avoid Contagion is good read as well.
And when it comes to learning from survival fiction, I suggest the Brushfire Plague seriesby R.P. Ruggiero.
Finally, go back and read the article 16 Items To Help You Hunker Down in Comfort for some additional ideas that will make the process of physical isolation more comfortable for you and your family.
The Final Word
This is my personal plan for hunkering down if and when an Ebola or other type of pandemic becomes eminent. I make no claim to its accuracy or to whether it will keep me safe from illness. That being said, common sense and the ability to think clearly under duress will prevail and I have a high degree of confidence that the steps I am taking will be the right ones.
I would like to end with a call to action. What is your plan? Do you have some ideas that we can learn from? I am all ears and would love to hear from you.
Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!
Gaye
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http://www.backdoorsurvival.com/preparing-to-hunker-down-in-place/
Before you “hunker down in place”, has anyone seen any independent (non-Zionist) confirmation that this virus has actually left Africa, or is the press still in “create the panic mode”?
So far I’ve seen nothing to indicate that this isn’t just another Sandy Hoax, or 9-11 ruse in progress, and I’m not going to believe it until there’s some real proof that the virus is actually spreading.
I’m sure it’s in all the papers, and on every TV channel (it always is), and I’m sure there are some very convincing witnesses (there always are), but I’m going to have to see some independent reporting of this “pandemic” before I believe it’s any cause for concern whatsoever.
Jolly Roger ~ be careful what you wish for. I wouldn’t put it past the P.T.B. to make it a reality to reinforce their ultimate agenda. As the saying goes, better to have and not need than to need and not have.
By “making it a reality” I assume you mean they might actually release the Ebola virus into the population, but I don’t think they would actually do that because: 1. they have too much to lose themselves. 2. they can accomplish their goals without actually doing that.
They’re still doing business here, and still very busy in the process of draining our resource wealth (and the last of our private wealth), and a real Ebola outbreak would threaten their profits.
A fake Ebola outbreak would allow them to continue doing business, make more money by selling vaccines, and allow them to pass “mandatory vaccination” laws.
They don’t want Ebola here any more than you do, because they’re making ga-zillions, and don’t want that interrupted by a lack of slaves, or by exposing themselves or their families to the possibility of being infected. When you see a large exodus of Zionists out of the country, then you should start worrying about Ebola.