Category: Safety Advice
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Tornado Safety: Shelter, Evacuation, and More
Tornadoes are among nature’s most violent storms, capable of producing devastating damage in mere minutes. With wind speeds that can exceed 200 miles per hour, tornadoes can destroy well-built structures, uproot trees, and hurl vehicles and debris like missiles. Understanding how to stay safe during a tornado is crucial, and this involves having a well-thought-out…
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Extinguish Chimney Fires in 22 Seconds
I know it’s a bit late in the wood-burning season, but I recently came across this video that discusses a way to extinguish chimney fires very quickly. It does so using Chimfex. It’s a CSIA approved chimney fire extinguisher, and looks an awful lot like a large road flare. Anyway, I’d never hear of it,…
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How to Deescalate a Situation With Unexploded Ordnance
You never know what you might come across in the future. Active explosives probably aren’t something you think you’ll ever encounter in your everyday life, but this is a reality for some people. You need to know how to stay safe if you ever discover unexploded ordnance (UXO). UXO may be more common than you…
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How to Maintain Your Mental Health in Isolation
Maybe the events of the past year haven’t tested your mettle enough, or perhaps too much cabin fever has you itching for an extended solo trek. Spending time in isolation has inspired poets and off-the-grid types since time immemorial. Plus, sometimes, you just want to be alone. However, human beings are social animals, and you…
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Useful Wildfire Tracking Website
Over the weekend I found a useful website called InciWeb (Incident Information System) for tracking current wildfires around the country and, sadly, it appears the entire West Coast is burning down: It’s very easy to use. You can easily zoom in seemingly indefinitely which you’ll want to do. Here’s me zooming into my home state…
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Plywood to Protect Doors and Windows During Civil Unrest
I know that the guy in the video below (TheUrbanPrepper) lives in the Seattle area like I do, but I think he’s on the Seattle-side of the Puget Sound, so I can understand why he’s pre-cutting plywood sheets now to help protect his home considering how unruly it’s getting over there. In any case, for…
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Home Fires: Prevention, Protection, Recovery, and More
Fire eats and breathes, but it isn’t truly alive — and if you take away its fuel or oxygen, it will die. Fire also indiscriminately consumes everything in its path when it is set loose, including homes, businesses, animals and people. Thankfully, you can take steps to protect your home from fire, whether the blaze…
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Self-Cleaning Oven Fires and Other Winter Dangers
Over the holidays we went to visit family in Kansas City for a few weeks… all I can say now is that I’m glad to be back home for a while, lol. One day, however, I noticed that my mother-in-law had set her oven to self-clean and then left the house to run errands. In…
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Tired of Replacing Your Smoke Alarm Batteries? Do This Instead…
Changing smoke alarm batteries has been a part of my preparedness “ritual” for many years now. And every year, I would purchase more 9-volt batteries because it seems that every alarm I had (except one or two) uses them. But it got to a point where I realized I was spending a good twenty dollars…