Safety Neal's Zombie Prep & Civil Defense Blog

Zombiepocalypse Rifles

2012-01-18T18:57:00.000-08:00

In the zombiepocalypse, rifles are an important tool for survival. Rifles allow one to fight off zombies as well as human marauders. Additionally, rifles can be used to hunt game.Of course, rifles have some deficits. The sounds may attract zombies. Rifles rely on bullets, which will likely be in short supply. Rifles and their ammunition are heavy.Different rifle designs have trade-offs. Bolt action rifles are very reliable and typically are highly accurate, but are slow on follow-up shots.Semi-automatic rifles are quicker on follow-up shots but require cleaning. A scoped rifle can also be a challenge to use in close quarters combat.Of course, caliber is a significant issue. Small caliber rifles will be useful for hunting small game such as rabbits and squirrels but will be of little use on zombies.

Zombie Eradication Rifles: Patriot Ordnance Factory

2011-11-29T15:14:00.001-08:00

I have been researching automatic rifles (ARs) for zombie eradication work.Patriot Ordnance Factory makes an interesting gas piston variant of the AR-15 that they call the POF-415 and POF-416.AR-15.com has a forum for POF here.A review of the P-415 in 6.8MM begins with this interesting proposition:"For many years now the argument has waged back and forth between 5.56mm and 6.8SPC. “Which one hits harder, which one is better?” The questions and claims fly backand forth. My two cents on the matter is simply this, I’ve seen some massive wound cavities created with 5.56mm. I’ve personally blown holes through soft-armor clad ballistics dummies using 7.5-inch 5.56mm SBRs. I’ve watched 5.56mm Hornady TAP in 75-grain pierce holes in Level IIIA body armor and blow out sections of ballistics media measuring 5 inches in diameter and another 5 in depth. I know that the heavier rounds in 5.56mm will get the job done quite well. Yet with all this information, I’ll tell you hands down that given the choice to carry a 6.8mm or 5.56mm chambered weapon into the fray, I’d go with 6.8mm any day of the week.Anecdotal evidence proves that the current M855 steel cored rounds that our soldiers are being forced to use are tantamount to spitwads in a fight. Don’t misunderstand me on this, M855 is an excellent anti-material round but it acts like a laser beam on people. It goes right through the enemy creating small holes that don’t incapacitate the subject. A gun chambered in 6.8mm on the other hand acts more like an AK-47 firing the always-lethal 7.62mm."- Abner Miranda, Black Guns Magazine,(2010).Small Arms Review did a torture test comparing a POF-16 rifle with a direct impingement M-4 and they blew out the gas tub on the M-4.

Cold Weather Survival: Firestarting & Tinderbox

2009-12-12T12:00:00.001-08:00

Winter has officially arrived in Minnesota. I just had an educational CCDC/CERT training session on cold water survival and hypothermia response.

A few ice safety take-aways:

Ice is never safe because of springs and fish activity. It's not necessarily a uniform consistency all over, so depth of ice varies.

Wear a PFD if you go out on the water.

Slush is always a bad sign. NEVER drive a car or truck out on the ice.

Snow mobiles actually exert less pressure per square inch on the ground than a human being. I think this is also true for a person wearing skis.

If someone is suffering from hypothermia, be sure to warm them up slowly. Getting them too warm too fast can result in cold blood shocking the heart and stopping it.

Carry a rope in your car to throw to people who've broken through the ice. (A small weight on one end with a hand loop is great too.)

Never go out on broke ice to "rescue" someone unless you've special training. You'll end up in the drink yourself.

If you don't have a rope, a ladder also works.

Firestarting

Another piece of advice the speaker offered offered was to carry some firestarter.

I'm not good at starting fires, so I struggle with this issue.

Kit Up has an excellent discussion of firestarting titled Lord of the Flame.

This is my current approach:

I use an empty vitamin bottle as a tinderbox. I added some cotton balls (with a dab of vaseline each) to the bottle. I then taped it to a plastic wallet on a lanyard.

The wallet is reinforced with duct tape. Duct tape is handy in an emergency, after all.

The wallet has a lighter, a multi-tool & Swedish Fire Steel in it. See Gear Junkie for a description of Swedish Firesteel.

A plain cigarette lighter at least has a piece of steel and tinder. I like the FireSteel as a backup, but I'm a safety geek...

Add some tinder (dryer lint, fat wood, twigs, grass, paper, char...) and you've a fire making pouch, aka tinderbox. A small candle rocks for light and heat generation. Tea lights, votive candles, candles also come in tins...

The duct tape on my fire making pouch is safety orange, so it's easy for me to find and retain my tinderbox.

Magnesium sticks sound good in theory, but I'm hesitant to use a knife so close to my fingers when I'm freezing to death. The bits of magnesium dust also blow away easily and it's not easy to get the spark strip to work when it's below freezing. (This I've tried.)

Here's a proposition that I've considered, but I would welcome feedback.

Starting a fire is difficult, especially in a strong wind.

In a life or death situation (with the wind blowing 50 mph), you could attach your tinder to a strip of duct tape to hold it in place long enough to get a spark on it. Otherwise tinder is easily blown away.

The downside to the duct tape method is burning a small piece of plastic in the duct tape, which is bad for the environment.

Other suggestions for a tinder box?

|Cross-Posted at Safety Neal's Fireside Chat|

Disaster Response and National Security, two interrelated concepts

2009-10-03T12:14:00.001-07:00

Ran across this over at DefenseTech's blog.

After the September 11th attacks, the Department of Homeland Security was put together with two major goals in mind: deter further terrorist strikes, and respond to disasters, both natural and man-made -- since the evacuation plans, medical responses, and the like are largely the same in either case.

Four years and countless billions of dollars later, we've seen a clumsy, ten-thumbed response from DHS [to Hurricane Katrina]. Ships and troops were delayed for days before they were ordered to the disaster zone. Tens of thousands were left stranded, without food or water or medical care, while relief agencies were turned away.

All this, after a disaster everyone knew was coming. Now, imagine what would have happened after a surprise attack. Al Qaeda operatives have to be wondering the same thing. It's as if we've hung a giant "kick me" sign around the nation's neck.|Why Katrina Matters - DefenseTech|

Well said. I'd call this author a safety-hawk. This may overlap with being a greenhawk, someone interested in energy security and national security.

Mitzi Wertheim, a consultant to the DoD’s Office of Force Transformation [helped lead the greenhawk effort]. Dan Nolan, a retired Army colonel in charge of energy projects for the Rapid Equipping Force, crunched numbers to show that, since the transport of fuel to forward bases had become the soft target favored by insurgents, energy-inefficiency was costing the Army lives. Since then, the Army has begun to deploy tents made of solar-capturing materials to supply the energy needs of the bases. And also fuel-cell-powered vehicles that take advantage of the same innovations in batteries that have made laptops so small.
|The "Greenhawk" Moment - Standpoint|

Emergency First Aid: Flail Chest

2009-03-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

My brother suffered a flail chest from a motorcycle accident a couple of years ago. The description and treatment are:

Conflagration

2009-02-14T13:52:00.001-08:00

conflagration, originally uploaded by Farl.

Table Top Disaster Training

2009-02-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

Today I did a table top training with Ramsey County CERT. We were tasked with keeping the perimeter on a multiple dwelling arson. (Note to self: never say anything to reporters, especially not words like arson.)

The scenario was that we were activated 12 hours into the fire in order to relieve the strain on law enforcement from the long fire and investigation. We had 21 volunteers to work with and several maps of the affected area.

My group worked together well. We sat around the maps and talked through what we would do. Ramsey county has lots of parks, so parks are good places to stage volunteers.

We initially blockaded the street and then set up an HQ at the south blockade. We never thought to ask if we could use someone's garage for the duration of the disaster, but that was a great suggestion we received later.

From the HQ we'd coordinate with fire and police as well as the VOAD's. A VOAD is a volunteer organization active in disasters such as the Red Cross/Red Crescent, Salvation Army, pet rescue societies, Doctors without Borders, et cetera. All VOADs are NGOs, of course.

My group thought to stop traffic (in a small perimeter), but we didn't consider trying to hold a large perimeter by re-routing buses, highways, contacting the railroad to hold trains, or evacuating nearby schools and churches.

We divided our small perimeter into two sectors (hot and cold) and planned to keep a tight perimeter around the hot area. We thought the cold area would eventually be opened to people living in the area whose homes weren't affected, but we still wanted to keep them out of the hot sector (which would contain the crime scene).

One thing to always be on the lookout for at a fire is how to keep crowds of gawkers away from the scene and be on your guard for foolish behavior from firebugs.

After dark falls, the best way to keep a perimeter is with dogs. Nobody (and I do mean nobody) wants to mess with a police dog. Some people will take advantage of a tragedy to loot and you want to avoid that, but disaster scenes are inherently dangerous and especially so in the dark. Flashlights don't last very long when you're going all night.

Cross country skiing for winter search and rescue

2009-02-10T17:07:00.000-08:00

I took up cross country skiing this winter. The woods are beautiful in Minnesota.

Classic cross country skiing is a great workout for the whole body, is low impact and a great way to get around in the snow. A good way to stay in shape throughout the year for an emergency situation.

I think it would be useful for winter search and rescue, although the skis would degrade and lose some functionality if they were used on ungroomed trails, especially on broken ground and going over sticks and rocks.

Wildfire Today

2009-02-07T09:59:00.000-08:00

I like the pyromaniac running Wildfire Today.

Safety Propositions: Gas Stations

2008-11-08T21:06:00.000-08:00

Police refer to convenience stores as stop-and-robs and this description fits gas stations as well, so I pay attention to my surroundings, but that's not the greatest safety hazard at a gas station.

Accidental combustion is the greatest risk posted by a gas station, IMHO. Nobody wants to die in a conflagration. Surviving with a massive third degree burn would be torturous, as well.

Last week I pulled into a gas station and noticed that the pump's dispenser nozzle was locked into the on position. Luckily I checked it before I started the gas. I started checking the nozzle after I once saw a guy accidentally spray gasoline all over the side of his truck prior to refueling.

This habit may have saved me from being drenched in gasoline last week, which is toxic and highly flammable (of course). You would have to decontaminate before you got back in your car. Water is the natural decon agent, but you wouldn't want to pollute the sewers and ground water, so I assume you'd need to call the local FD to contaminate you... never had to do it. Knock on wood.

Only morons smoke at gas stations, but I've seen it done before. (Drive away as fast as you can.)

I don't get back in my car during refueling b/c of a risk of static discharge. If you do get back in the car (b/c of cold) be sure to touch a metal surface before putting the gas dispenser nozzle back in the gas pump.

And always turn the car completely off before fueling.

Cross-posted at the Fireside Chat.

Crime Maps

2008-11-07T16:02:00.000-08:00

Crime maps are a useful tool for visualizing crime data. A new service, CrimeReports.com, will send you an individualized crime blotter if your local police or sheriff's department participates.

Havaria Information Services Alert Map

2008-11-06T10:09:00.000-08:00

The Havaria Information Services Alert Map is a visualization tool to increase global disaster awareness (which precedes response).

Information Sharing in a disaster: mobile wikis?

2008-05-02T21:57:00.000-07:00

One use of a wiki would be to allow anyone with a Internet capable device (e.g. Blackberries, Iphones, PDA's) to access and share information.

A mobile adapted wiki would seem tailor made for this. One option is Upvise, which has a mobile & web client free to individuals (but also available to businesses) that would be useful for tracking (& thus coordinating)dispersed activities in a disaster.

New Disaster Management Wiki

2008-04-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

Just become you can never have enough Web 2.0 tools, I've created a Disaster Management wiki at Wikispaces.

Breathe, Dummy!

2008-04-11T17:38:00.001-07:00

Shave hair before attaching the electrodes (8/365) by Cassiefoeboe.

Heart Attacks and AEDs

2008-04-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

An Automated External Defibrillators (or AED) is a tool that can help treat heart attacks.

Here's OSHA's conclusion on AEDs in a Technical Information Bulletin.

The sooner defibrillation is started, the more likely the victim will survive. The optimum time for defibrillation is 3 to 5 minutes after the onset of the cardiac arrest. The AED is a safe, effective, easily learned method of treating victims of cardiac arrest.

Amazon even sells AEDs. Many public places have purchased them including airports, malls, and schools. They're getting so affordable that individuals can reasonably purchase them.

Hopefully you'd never need it, but better to have an AED and not need it, than to need an AED....

The End of the Blog

2008-03-22T09:37:00.001-07:00

Since blog posts are arranged in reverse chronological order, this will be the last blog post if you started late. Your host is a kindly law librarian in St. Paul who loves the snow and volunteers with the Ramsey County CERT team organized through the Ramsey County Sheriff's. In our jurisdiction the CERT teams continue their training with the CCDC or Citizens Civil Defense Corps.

Ramsey County has an umbrella program called VIPS for Volunteers in Public Service.

I'll blog about my training and conference experiences to create an archive for myself and others.