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Our Retreat/Home in Northwest Nevada, by W.T.
In 2011 I retired from the military and my wife and I moved to our forever home in Northwest Nevada. At the time we were not preppers, nor were we from here. We just wanted to live on some acreage, away from big city problems, in a location in which we could indulge our love for the outdoors. After the 2012 elections, our fears about the direction of our country grew rapidly and we stumbled upon the concept of prepping.
As we begin our second calendar year of prepping I thought it would be helpful to execute a self-assessment of our readiness. A fellow beginner with whom I shared it for feedback thought it was very helpful to him and suggested that I share it with other newbies. I realize that survivalblog.com has a good number of technical experts who post here and many more who read it regularly. I don’t claim to be one of those, but I do think that a) a formal self-assessment could benefit anyone, and b) seeing things though new eyes can provide new insights and ideas. Here is a slightly abridged and sanitized version of my self-assessment.
SURVIVABILITY ASSESSMENT
This document is intended to encapsulate our ability to survive a natural or manmade disaster. Putting it all in writing may illuminate some weaknesses we had not considered and will allow third parties to evaluate our preparedness.
THREAT ASSESSMENT
Most likely potential threats:
Earthquake – Northwest Nevada is considered a high-risk earthquake area. According to the USGS there is a 55% chance that a 6.5 or greater earthquake will hit our area within the next 50 years. (No, we didn’t know that when we moved here!) To put that into perspective, San Francisco has an 80% chance of that occurring while Boise has only a 2% chance. Fortunately, as likely as this is, it should only be a regional and relatively short duration event.
Wildfire – Another natural disaster common to our area is wildfire. We’ve literally seen two since we’ve been here and felt/breathed the effects of the giant Rim fire for weeks last year. These will continue to occur, we just have to hope they miss us. The only practical way to prepare (I think) is to have a bug-out plan ready.
Terrorist Attack – While I believe this is likely to occur again soon, it is unlikely to be large enough to be a true TEOTWAWKI event. Still, if they hit the west coast or DC with something big, we will feel the effects here. Worst case scenario is a long-term grid outage.
Economic Collapse – There is no mathematical reality that will allow the continued creation of debt which can never be repaid. If the Federal Reserve stops printing, it will not be able to lend the money required by the government. If the government stops borrowing it will shortly be insolvent. If it stops supporting the multitude of social programs there will be massive civil unrest.
Source: http://www.survivalblog.com/2013/12/our-retreathome-in-northwest-nevada-by-wt.html
