Two Seconds - Ebook

By Steve Krieger

All around us in the media are stories of crisis and catastrophe that arise with little warning and take hug toll of life and property. It is easy to feel powerless against these events, but there are things you can do to minimize the impact of them on yourself and the people you care about. Inside are stories, tips, and methods to help you stay safe in the world in which we live.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365525131

Book preview

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Contents – Two Seconds

Introduction – Ahead Of Time – p3

Part One – Two Seconds Can Make The Difference

Ch 1 – The Nature Of Threat – p7

Ch 2 – Personal Safety At Home – p13

Ch 3 – Personal Safety In Public – p31

Ch 4 – Personal Safety In A Car – p43

Ch5 – Final Thoughts About Personal Safety – p53

Part Two – Prepare

Introduction – Should I Stay Or Should I Go? – p63

Ch 1 – In The Open – p69

Ch 2 – At Home – p75

Ch 3 – Food – p83

Ch 4 –  Water – p87

Ch 5 – Communication – p91

Ch 6 – Weapons - 93

Afterword – p99

Part Three – Appendix and Resources

1)  Suggested Bug Out Bag – p103

Contagious Outbreak

Weather

Chemical

Civil Unrest

2)  Graphic Morse Code List – p106

3)  Suggested Retailers – p108

Introduction – Two Seconds

Before I begin, I need to make a few things clear.  I am not an ex-marine.  I am not ex-FBI.  I do not have a black belt in any form of martial arts.  What I am, is just like most people in America.  I work, I live in a middle class home in a middle class neighborhood, and I like to spend time with my family.  I don’t have a pool of unlimited resources and time to spend on being prepared.  What serious education I have on the subject of preparedness began on October 15, 2007, when two armed men walked down my driveway on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, pointed a gun at my wife and I, and threatened to kill us.  That day changed the way I look at the world around me, and not in a negative way, as one might think.  It simply brought into sharp focus for me that events that can potentially change our lives forever can unfold anytime, anywhere around us.  As it turned out, the attempted home invasion itself was not much of event.  The entire thing was over in about 5 minutes.  I will recount the actual event later in this book, but for now, just let me say that I truly believe that just the little bit of preparedness we had might have saved our lives that day.

The thoughts and ideas I have included in this book consist of some conclusions I have come to on my own after some pretty extensive research, as well as some ideas which have been assimilated from other sources.  Wherever possible, I have tried to give due credit to those other sources.  The reader should understand at the outset that although these ideas have served me and others well, they are only suggestions, and taking any actions or inactions based on the thoughts expressed in this book are to be undertaken at the reader’s sole discretion.  It is also important at this point to note that the ideas included in this book are not guarantees of safety.  There is no such thing as a guarantee of safety.  The ideas are based on statistics, and may or may not produce favorable results.  As with many things in life, having a plan is important, but so is the ability to make individual decisions and apply them to unique situations.  Hopefully, the reader will take what is in these pages and build upon them, and in so doing, learn that taking some simple steps in advance can lead to huge differences in how any given situation may resolve itself. 

Over a hundred years ago, the organization that would eventually come to be known as the Boy Scouts of America adopted be prepared as their motto.  But what does it mean to be prepared?  And what, exactly, should someone prepare for?   Is it even possible to be prepared for everything that might occur?  This book will not only help define what it means to be prepared for events that may transpire, but will also make some suggestions as to what that preparedness may require.  I have tried to format the book around a sliding scale.  That is, I have tried to include all kinds of ideas, materials, and preparations which range from costing a few dollars and taking only a few moments to make, all the way up to full scale preparations which have significant cost and can take years to accomplish.  Hopefully, the reader will be able to find a place in the range to function where they feel comfortable. 

This book is divided into two parts.  Although there are two distinctly different concepts addressed here, there are undoubtedly aspects of each that apply to both topics.

The first section is devoted to the idea of personal safety, at home and in public.  It will focus on your behavior and the behavior of those around you.  It will address the idea of adjusting the reader’s mindset to one of vigilance and situational awareness.  This is not to be confused with paranoia.  Paranoia is self-defeating behavior which can consume time, effort, and resources, and is largely unproductive.  Vigilance and awareness can easily become part of a lifestyle without significant cost or sacrifice in quality of life.  I will try to make the case that an aware mindset can be among the most important skills one can acquire. 

The second part of the book speaks mainly to items, equipment and situations where being prepared can range in effect from simply making a stressful event like a temporary power outage a bit less stressful, all the way to surviving versus not surviving some unforeseen catastrophic event.  It addresses different kinds of situations, as well as some simple and more complex ideas for dealing with them.

I want this book to be a book for people who may be curious about the idea of preparation, but may consider preppers to be fanatical or downright crazy.    There are shows on television about preppers which portray them as doomsday fundamentalists who can spend fortunes on bomb shelters or fortified abandoned missile silos.  I’m not one of those people.  I don’t think the world is going to end tomorrow, or even the day after.  I don’t think an electromagnetic pulse is going to wipe out the power grid, or that the caldera in Yosemite is going to blow up anytime soon.  What I do believe is that there are some events, natural and manmade, which can be prepared for in a simple, inexpensive way, without building a bunker in your backyard or spending the fortune that most of us do not have.

Many of the ideas I reference in this book may seem at first to be counter-intuitive.  It may seem to the reader that many of the things I write about conflict with what we have been taught growing up – don’t make eye contact with strangers and they will leave you alone, or if your car breaks down, call for help and stay in the car and you will be safe.  I ask only that as you read these ideas, you keep an open mind and allow me to make the case for each of my points, and then consider AHEAD OF TIME how you would deal best with any given situation.  Wherever possible, I have tried to include statistics to back up my assertions, but as I mentioned before, there are no real definitive answers to handling these adversities, only guidelines.

Part 1

Two seconds can make the difference

Chapter 1 – The nature of threat

Threats can be real or imagined.  They can be based on legitimate reason, or on perception and intuition.  I would argue that both kinds of threats should be addressed, albeit in different ways.  In The Gift of Fear, Gavin De Becker makes a distinction between real fear, that intuitive, subconscious, prehistoric ability