Survival Consideration: Skills vs. Stuff

For as long as I remember there has been mild discussion and lively debate in the survival circles between those who feel you need a lot of "stuff" to survive a disaster and those who say you need minimal stuff but will fare better with "skills".  I am someone who does much better when I have time to ponder things and work out the details for myself, sans emotional rhetoric.  I do this because once I reach what I feel is a well thought out conclusion, it is very hard to convince me otherwise... and I really don't like to be wrong.

Having read scores of true survival stores, dozens of "post apocalyptic" and "prepper fiction" books, and reviewing the events of a couple recent high profile disasters (Hurricane Sandy (US east coast 2012) and Typhoon Haiyan (Philippines 2013)) I have come to some conclusions about this subject.  Unfortunately my conclusions don't settle the dispute for me.  Let's talk about that.

The true survival stories I read and the recent disaster events I reviewed (none of which affected me, personally) are all short term, localized problems.  The effects on different people ranged from some people being isolated and without power for a couple weeks to others losing their entire homes and all their possessions.  If you were one who lost all of his possessions, then having "things" would not be a lick of help to you at all since all of your stuff is now destroyed, buried under a ton of mud, or floating somewhere in the ocean.  If you were isolated and without power, then having a generator and stocked pantry ("things") made it so you could make it through with relative ease.  Similarly, if you cannot go anywhere and are without power due to a heavy snow storm, having "stuff" will be of much more help than having "skills".

Let's switch gears from recent events to things much more widespread and theoretical: disaster fiction.  A couple years ago I got on a kick of post apocalyptic fiction novels and have slowed down a bit, but am still going.  The disaster initiators of these books ranges from nuclear war of the 50's (On the Beach and Alas, Babylon); massive comet strike from the 70's (Lucifer's Hammer); to modern power grid down, economic collapse, political upheaval, or even a combination (One Second After, Patriots, Lights Out, 299 Days).  Now, don't discount the fiction genre as a place to learn some things.  One of the reasons I started reading this type of book was because I was curious about some different possible scenarios and what others thought might occur during those scenarios. 

A common theme throughout almost all of the books (certainly all of those listed above) was a sense of community.  Specifically, organized communities of individuals existing to help each other instead of acting as lone survivalists.  Many of the books went into detail about how the community was organized and how it was defended to keep others out who may threaten the resources of that community.  As time went on several of these communities found themselves lacking in people with certain important skills.  Five of the books (Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven, Patriots by James Wesley, Rawles, Lights Out by David Crawford, 299 Days series by Glen Tate, Deep Winter trilogy by Thomas Sherry) contain protected communities where individuals or families that are passing by and looking for a safe haven are interviewed in search of skills that will contribute to that community.  Those possessing helpful or needed skills found a place to reside that offered protection from the evils and violence of the outside world.

A recent podcast: Doom and Bloom interview with Charley Hogwood author of MAGS
 really helped cement the idea for me that useful skills are a necessity.  Charley wrote a book about building Mutual Assistance Groups.  I have not yet read his book (although I fully intend to do so very soon) but one of the ideas covered in the interview was building a group of people with complementary personalities and skills.  In the book he discusses how to build groups pre-disaster and post-disaster; how to find people who will be a benefit to your group and avoid people who will merely be resource consumers.

There are a multitude of posts in the Prepper blogosphere about useful skills in addition to a website dedicated to just that: learning useful hard skills- http://www.13skills.com/

Think about it.  If you have a solid community, are you going to let in a sluggard who offers nothing in return or, with your limited resources, are you going to be looking for someone with a skill that will benefit your group?  If you had such a group, what kind of skills would you need?  A few on my list are medical, auto repair, metal and wood worker, security expert, gardener/permaculturist, food forager, food preserver, and herbalist among others.  If two people come to my group looking for a place to stay and I have the choice between a medic and someone who only knows how to cook microwave dinners but knows what happened on every episode of the MTV reality shows, which would I choose?  Or a choice between an auto mechanic and someone who worked in "customer service" but never took the time to learn a solid skill?  What about a lawyer or an older lady who spent years gardening and canning her surplus?  Some skills may be out of reach for the average person (doctor, military trained security expert) but so many useful skills are learned by your average Joe over time.

My conclusion:
In a short term, more localized disaster, "stuff" is necessary.  Choose your "stuff" carefully and always take into consideration what would happen if your "stuff" went away (burglary, house wiped out, etc).
In a long term problem, "stuff" will help you start, but you need "skills" to make it through.

So, both are necessary.  Take into consideration where you reside, your bug-out location (if any) and what disasters are likely to befall you.  If you haven't started prepping for survival during a disaster and don't know where to start, I'll offer some advice: pick something and do it.  Yep... just choose something and get started.  While you are growing your pantry or planting a garden or learning some herbal remedies read articles and blog posts from a variety of authors (don't get caught up in any given authors' biases).  Maybe make it a goal to read one article or post each day to expand your view.  Better yet, choose some "stuff" to gather (canned or dry food is a good place to start) and a skill to start learning.  Frugal Squirrels and The Survival Podcast are both great forums to get help with skills.

Hopefully I have planted a seed in your mind about how you will make it through a disaster.  Now... What Will You Do?

Get Home Bag (Bug Out Bag) Creation

I have slowly been building up a Get Home Bag (GHB).  GHB is a more specific and accurate term for something more commonly called a Bug Out Bag (BOB).  The idea behind the bag is to hold items that you would need to safely get home if something were to happen while you were away (at work, running errands, etc) and you wouldn't be able to just drive back. 

I live away from a major population area in a smaller town and most of my work and errands are 20-30 miles away from home in the larger city.  My bag is being built around the idea of a couple/three days of foot travel through populated and unpopulated terrain.  It consists of items I think I might need that I don't normally carry on my person.

It's not finalized yet and honestly probably never will be as I get new ideas and new stuff is acquired to add or replace current items.  Let's take a look at how it has progressed so far:

Current GHB contents

Broken up we have the bag:

LAPG Bug Out Gear Bag with a couple affinity patches

The first row of items:

 

A Gerber takedown saw with bone and wood blades; a Cold Steel Bushman knife with a small, folding sharpening stone in the pocket; a generic led flashlight with a beam head, wide area side and magnet base; a Buck Revolution XT; a couple tubes of superglue in an old pill bottle; the large white square is an Emberlit collapsible stove; under that is a Cold Steel Voyager; a countycomm widgy pry bar wrapped in small paracord; bug repellant; two butane lighters in a larger pill bottle; and a double bagged, hand rolled, bunch of TP.

The next row:



The white square is a handkerchief; an led, elastic banded headlamp; then a small bottle of water purifying tablets.  Below those are a handful of instant heat pads; a folding metal stove; hexa-mine fire starting tabs; a roll of gauze; and a roll of medical tape.  The gauze and tape are spares from my first aid kit that are here since they fit and need to be somewhere.

The bottom row:



Warm gloves, dry socks, and a watchcap.

The water bottle...



... is a Sport Berkey that will safely filter water from any source so I don't need to carry heavy water filled bottles around.

The cold weather items are things I will swap out with warm weather items when it gets hot... if I remember.  As much as possible I have tried to pack for the "two is one and one is none" theory which is why I carry several items on my person and some in a different bag that is also generally with me when I am out and about more than a few miles away from home.

Several things missing from here that I either carry on my person or elsewhere in my vehicle are a multi-tool, defensive firearm and reloads, decent but not extensive first aid kit, tarp or other waterproof covering, pen and paper.  Things I need to get loaded in the GHB that I don't currently have are some extra batteries, food, duct tape, cordage, and one or two more fire starting methods.

So let's discuss this: 
-What am I missing that I need to consider adding? 
-What do you have in yours that's completely different from mine and why?  
-Do you have a completely different take on your GHB? 
-Any questions about why I have a particular item here?

Now... What Will You Do?