When Disaster Strikes: A Comprehensive Guide for Emergency Prepping and Crisis Survival

"When Disaster Strikes" is an excellent buy for many reasons. First, it is a handy overview of a broad range of topics that will save hours of research and cost for those looking for practical advice on personal and family disaster planning. It is something you will want in print prior to a disaster when the Internet may not be available to you because of the very disaster you wish to prepare for.Secondly, it dares to tackle the issue of long-term disasters. This is essential since most of us will never take the time or expense to be prepared as long as we feel like someone else will bail us out anyway -- especially when we are in difficult economic times. As good as we feel about our emergency planning agencies at the state or federal level, if there is a sustained nationwide power and communications outage, we must be able to take care of ourselves, our families and our neighbors since it could take months before help might arrive from those on the outside. And, however long or short it takes for help to arrive, if we can help ourselves, then that help which can be provided can go to those who need it most.Thirdly, in his chapter on "Emergency Survival", you will engage matters of the heart and positive mental health and attitudes that are critical not only to survival but the willingness to have the discussion in the first place. I have often heard many say, "I don't need to prepare for these kind of scenarios, just give me a bullet." Even more than hope that we can survive, we need motivation to compell us to survive. I think that motivation needs to be each other. We need to be willing to think of another we care about so much that we will gladly go through an extremely depressing time or environment so that we might help that other person. In the end, it is not just about me, it's got to be about us. Otherwise, we may lose the will to live or strive.More can be said on all these topics. I expect to hear more from Matt Stein and others from preppers to those in the "transition movement". I look forward to new developments in sustainable communities, the role of new technologies, particularly those that help create sustainable local communities addressing every critical infrastructure from communications and local power generation (especially using renewable energy) to water, sanitation, food production,transportation, shelter and medicine. Meanwhile, for these reasons and more, this book is a great start.Chuck Manto, CEOInstant Access Networks, LLC[...], [...] andManager of the EMP SIG of InfraGard National

I may have all the stuff in the world to use in an emergency but if I don't have a plan, all I have is STUFF; a pile of junk with no map to follow for their effective use in a crisis.I have STUFF. I know how to use my STUFF. And I keep buying more STUFF. But, I put off making a plan because I didn't know where to start and the task seemed overwhelming. I like simple. When I found this book, I felt that I found simple and basic guidelines on making my emergency plan. I am not an authority on this stuff and there are likely better resources but, of those I have researched, this one works for me.Pages 22 through 33 lists things to consider in your plan, short term planning guides and the top ten survival skills. The rest of the book supports these and long term survival techniques and planning as well as hunting, first aid, living off the land, self-defense, starting a fire and much more . . . a book worth having in hand when something happens. It reminds me of my old Boy Scout Handbook on steroids. I took the overall essence of pages 22-33 and created this Microsoft Word document which you may use to start you own Emergency Plan at have-a-plan.com. Permission to post this document for free distribution was granted to me by the Author (Mat Stein) and the Publisher (Chelsea Green Publishing).Now, when I find another resource, on a particular topic that makes things clearer to me than this book, I print 3 copies and paste them, as separate pages, into my 3 books where the book topic pages are located. For example: Pages 213-214 describe the construction, and use, of a Solar Still. The book gives a good description but the drawing/diagram doesn't do the description justice so I found some images on the web that make it clearer to me and I pasted them in the binder-side margin of page 213. In essence, I am customizing my books to be more useful to me.I suggest reading reviews on the book, and/or checking it out from your local library, to make an intelligent decision to buy or not buy. If you buy and follow it, you will be ready. Then buy several more copies to keep in your emergency bags and more to give to friends, marking pages 22 through 33 for them to help them realize they can do this too.Now, my STUFF is more useful.I only give 4 stars because I don't think anything is perfect, including me.

This book is in every way a comprehensive guide for emergency planning and crisis survival. Having read many books dealing with similar topics, this is the most complete discussion of the crises and emergencies confronting us today. From natural disasters to pandemics and EMPs, Matthew Stein not only provides cutting-edge information but suggestions and solutions of how to prepare for what is inevitably coming our way in potential manifold forms. I thought the only weak part of the book had to deal with the removal of sewage, since that will be immense problem if the grid goes down. That part was a bit perfunctory, but the sections dealing with natural medicines, water, and surviving a nuclear disaster - as well as all other chapters in the book - contain crucial information and metaphoric antidotes to the array of disasters confronting us.Stein provides practical information on how to build or make specific, helpful things as well as where to buy them if you have the money. Thus, he is conscious of his audience - the different kinds of readers who will come at being prepared from different economic levels. The fact that James Wesley Rawles wrote the introduction to Stein's book speaks volumes about how he personally assesses it. If you are looking for a comprehensive survival guide, this is it.

I didn't agree with some of the author's viewpoints of shtf and as a primer, whilst it is good and has a decent breadth of topics, for each topics that it covers it is sadly lacking in depth. There were times when I felt the author was regurgitating things he had read as opposed to things he was writing from his personal experience.

cracking read

I found this to be a very well written book. There is a lot of information so youhave to take your time and cover the Chapters that interest youthe most and work your way through it. About the only negitive point is that it is written for US customer so when you go to any of the suggested web sites/links you will be looking at their laws or in the case of equipment purchases US prices. All in all though I found it to be a good referance book.

This book is a wealth of information. A guidebook on how to prepare for disasters and a reference book if, heaven forbid, you find yourself in a disaster.

no issues.