Day 8: 2020 Pandemic. Better Late Then Never. Preparing. Some items to consider.

The less you have to go out, the better. Hopefully you’ve stocked up as much food and supplies as you can. Your freezer and fridge and cupboard are full. There are many other supplies we should have. I see people loading carts with toilet paper and cases of water and frankly, not a priority. Especially the water. I’m contradicting myself somewhat since the very first task in my preparation and survival guide is a minimum of two cases of water per person in the household as minimum as an emergency supply. Yes, you should have that. But right now, this is an emergency where the taps should still run. Water takes a little bit lower priority than food, which doesn’t come out of the tap.

I posted about what food supplies you should have, looking long term. Try for at least a month’s worth. We’re on the upswing of infections right now and the next month is critical.

Checking at Amazon most long term camping/survival food is sold out. But I spent an hour or so searching and found some items—even as I was finding them, some went on back-order. Others are limited in number.

Okay—my recommendation of a Mountain House bucket of meals is sold out in various configurations on Amazon, but you can still get some if you go for specific meal packets. This is the type of food we used to LRRPs in Special Forces: Long Range Recon Patrol. They’re pretty filling and easy to make; just add hot water. Even I can manage that. I spent some time searching through, but this stuff is going fast. A couple of items that were in stock last night are now backordered. Right now, the following are in stock in limited quantities.

Spaghetti with meat sauce.  

Chicken and Dumplings.

Breakfast Hash

Trail mix

The last item was called “gorp” and kind of invented it in 10th Special Forces many years ago when we started adding high calorie items like m&m to trail mix for Winter Warfare.

I’ll post more things I think you should have beyond food, even if they go on back-order. I also have all my checklists from my Green Beret Preparation and Survival Guide on my web site for free download. HERE. This includes links and QR codes to every item. Also 28 free downloadable slideshares on various aspects of survival HERE.

Here is the map as of this morning, 19 March from NY Times. Which has no paywall for coronavirus information.