HB Prepper - Emergency Preparedness

 This article was inspired by a New Zealand Geographic article written by Tom Doig titled The Preppers Next Door. The link to his full article is here -  The preppers next door | New Zealand Geographic (nzgeo.com)  and it's well worth a read. It got me thinking that it could make an interesting article if I was to write about what started my journey - on the road to becoming a dedicated prepper. I belong to and facilitate/help to guide a group of around 20 preppers from a wide variety of backgrounds and lifestyles. We are at various stages in our preparedness journey with some having a lot of experience, who have been prepping for years, and others who only came onboard during the recent Covid pandemic response. In my case, my eyes were first opened to the need to be prepared yourself rather than to rely on the authorities when I saw the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 and how the people were pretty much left to fend for themselves, with those who did...

 My last article, published here on February 9th 2023 was titled "Timely Reminders and General Thoughts" And, timely it certainly turned out to be. Only 3 days later Cyclone Gabrielle paid New Zealand a visit that we on the east coast will never forget. I also said, in that last post, that I would make my next article about what I was doing to prepare. So, here it is.  Let me first say that compared to how Gabrielle impacted people's lives in places north of Hastings and Napier - such as Esk Valley and Wairoa, also Pakowhai - which lies between Hastings and Napier - we got off very lightly. The damage that some have endured, losing homes, livelihood's, livestock and human life has been terrible.  We personally were very lucky that our only losses, during the gale-force winds and driving rain of Gabrielle, were our veggie gardens and fruit trees. This happened because our property from front fence to back fence was under about a foot of floodwater, compromising our sep...

 Hello again and welcome to the first post of 2023.  Let me first wish everyone a Happy New Year - rather belated, but sincere. Let's hope it is a better one than 2022, 21 and 20. As I write this article, just over a week into the month of February, there has been so much in the news - and here I mean the mainstream media that the unawake rely on for their information - to give people a nudge into being prepared and becoming preppers. A lot of what's being reported on is fact, but there is a lot of speculation and what can only be described as "fear porn" too.  It helps the governments of the world and the powers that be in general to keep the global population fearful. The theory being that if we are scared and relying on THEM to protect us, we will give up certain rights and freedoms that we have had for centuries, in exchange for perceived safety. We are constantly being bombarded with news about the Ukraine war - which is nearing it's one year anniversary (24t...

 I'll start off with a disclaimer. I am not a security expert. The information that I am passing on here has been gleaned from a number of places - on-line, books, anecdotal and personal experience. I suggest that you do your own research and draw your own conclusions as to what will work best for you, your family and the location and layout of your property - and of course how much money you want to throw at such a project. Although, further into this article, I mention the use of weapons for home defence, I do not advocate the use of violence or the use of weapons under normal circumstances. “Everyone is justified in using, in the defence of himself or another, such force as, in the circumstances as he believes them to be, it is reasonable to use.” (Section 48 of the NZ Crimes Act 1961). What does this mean? You are allowed to defend yourself from attack, but use your commonsense. The idea is to defend yourself – not to cause injury or get revenge. If you use unreasonable force, ...

 According to a government website, there are up to 55 companies in New Zealand engaged in the production of pharmaceuticals or their ingredients. The high cost of developing and bringing a drug to market, compounded by the scarcity of capital in NZ, has led to the industry sector being in a stagnant state, and declining over the long term.  The majority of drugs used by the New Zealand public come from China, India or the USA, plus a few other minor players. We are currently living in a time of global unrest due to a number of factors including a global recession, high inflation, shortage of resources across food, fuel, manufacturing, and shipping, political unrest in many countries and between superpowers, the threat of a nuclear war and the long-term effects, both on health and the economy, of the covid-19 pandemic response.  Any of these factors becoming critical could mean that the pharmaceutical medications on which so many of us rely may no longer be shipped to New...