Lessons from Alas, Babylon: Barter Goods

Days into the apocalypse, staples and basic items start to disappear. Gasoline, sewing needles, shaving razors, thread, coffee, alcohol, sugar, flour, matches, lighter flints, ammunition, and later on, salt. 

Several months in, the lack of salt turns desperate, with a salt starvation setting in amongst the population of Fort Repose.

"Since July, he had been unable to trade for salt anywhere. In Marines Park, a pound of salt would be worth 5 pounds of coffee, if anyone had coffee."

The lesson: stock up on these items while they are cheap and readily available.

Small, cheap, non perishable items are the easiest to stock up on. Bic Lighters, cartons of matches and packs of lighter flints are a buck or two at the grocery store. Sewing needles, thread, bottles of rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, petroleum jelly, hand sanitizer, N95 masks, razors, screws, nails, safety pins, etc. are similarly inexpensive. These items will not go bad, will be difficult/impossible to replace post-collapse, and are useful if things never goes south.

Bulk supplies of food stuffs should be kept for your family's use and generally not barter unless you have excess storage room. Salt is one exception--50 pounds of table salt is around $8-$10 at Costco, and boxes of Morton table salt are usually around $1 at the store. It lasts forever, and has a multitude of uses beyond simple seasoning--preserving meat, saline solutions, and more. People generally only have single box of salt at home, so it will be in high demand quickly post-collapse.

Don't go nuts stocking up barter supplies for a possible TEOTWAWKI survival scenario. Don't fill your home with useless crap. Don't waste money--buy things that you will use if the world doesn't end, buy things that are on sale, use coupons, hit the dollar store, and so on. But $10-$20 a month spent wisely on inexpensive, compact hard goods adds up quickly. After six months to a year, you will have a sizable cache of goods on hand, for use in good times and bad. 

Lessons from Alas, Babylon: Code Phrases

"Alas, Babylon" is the code phrase that Randy and Mark Bragg come up with for "the end is nigh." Mark's alert message is sent by telegraph and passes through several hands before reaching Randy. No way Mark could have sent "the Russians are planning on attacking" or something similar.

Today, we don't have to deal with telegraphs, but electronic communication is subject to many of the same weaknesses--hacking, eavesdropping, and so on. If you're in public, telling the family something like "I think that guy has a gun, let's get out of here" may some unwanted attention. In the event that you are captured, kidnapped or otherwise compromised, and the enemy is attempting to use you to get to friends, family or whoever, you can use a simple, innocuous word to warn them, even while the bad guy listens in.

Code words are a very good idea--they allow you to communicate something important without raising alarm or suspicion, and do it very quickly. The code word/words should be something that you wouldn't normally say--something that will be obviously out of place to the person you're communicating with, but something that a stranger, enemy, etc. wouldn't recognize. Discuss it and plan out the reaction with the intended recipient.

Lessons from Alas, Babylon: Iron Rations

Randy Bragg gets home from buying up food at the grocery store, loads it all up in the pantry and then thinks it over:

"Perhaps he should make up a small kit of delicacies. If the worst happened, this would be their iron rations for a desperate time. If nothing happened, it would all keep."

He gathers up some small items--tea, bullion, Swiss chocolates canned cheese--puts them in a carton and then stashes that away in a chest in the office that "was a fine place to hide it and forget it."

"Iron rations" were emergency rations that soldiers were issued back in the old days of warfare--early 20th century, WWI times and prior. When soldiers were cut off from regular food supplies, they turned to their iron rations--tins of meat, cheese, some dried biscuits, etc.  The modern MRE evolved from this old-school ration.

Lessons from Alas, Babylon: Lists

Started Alas, Babylon last night, looking for what learnings could be gleaned from the novel. For those who haven't read it, Alas, Babylon is set in the 60s, during the height of the Cold War. The protagonist, Randy Bragg, gets a telegraphed message from his Airforce-officer brother, ending in "Alas, Babylon," their code for "it's about to hit the fan." No one else knows that danger is imminent, so Randy has a head start on reacting to the problem.

Randy's first realization is that he doesn't have much in the way of preparations--he's a bachelor and lives as such. He has money though, and quickly jots out some lists and runs out to the store. He buys up three or four grocery carts full of food, but by the time he gets home, he's realized that he's forgotten essential stuff--water, for example--and bought a bunch of useless stuff.

The lesson here? Think out your lists beforehand. Some people are good at thinking on their feet, but a thought out plan of action will beat out flying by the seat of your pants most any day. A crisis is the time you want to be sure and decisive, not wondering about what to do.

Of course, you probably won't have advanced warning that Randy Bragg has, and you hopefully won't need to head out to the local grocery store to buy up supplies in the 11th hour. But make your plans and write your lists before the crisis.

Homework: Identify one area of your preparations that is lacking, come up with a game plan and list it out.

Reading Lists - Forums

There are a huge number of guns/knives/edc/survival forums and blogs out there, with a wealth of information for new and experience preppers alike. Thought I'd point out a few of the better boards that I've come across while perusing the interwebs. If you have any favorites that I've left off the list, please post in the comments!

AR-15.com Survival and Survival Gear forums
ARFCOM can be a wild and harsh place, but the Survival boards are generally well behaved and contain some good info. Gets a fair amount of traffic, though things seem to have slowed down since a year or two ago. Your mileage may vary on the rest of ARFCOM - if you're into AR-15s, there's plenty o' good stuff here. If you're a sensitive soul, steer clear from the General Discussion forum :).

Bladeforums Wilderness & Survival Skills
Open and friendly, with a strong focus on bushcrafting and wilderness survival, and especially the "blades" part of that. Lots of traffic.

Glocktalk Survival/Preparedness
These boards used to be one of my favorites, but I found that the quality died off a couple years back and a few of the better/senior contributors of the forum left. Haven't been following for a while, so the quality may have bounced back.

Usual Suspect Network
You need a membership to view these boards. Huge number of forums for a wide variety of man-gear and a friendly, welcoming community. Strong focus on high end production, custom knives and overly expensive gizmos, but there are also firearms, Preparedness and zombie-hunting forums, too. TAD Gear fans - this is where TAD has their boards; they're very active, post product sneak peaks, schedules and the occasional special offer. There's gratuitous pics of nice, high-end gear all over the USN - beware, your wallet will get lighter if you spend much time on these boards. Need membership to view.

Warriortalk.com
Gabe Suarez/Suarez Institute's boards; reality-focused self defense with a Christian background. If you're a fan of Suarez, you'll love these boards - he posts frequently and the board covers some good topics not found elsewhere (urban sniping, for example). A strong leaning to the AK; if that's your weapon of choice, you'll find quite a bit here. Need membership to view.

Zombie Squad:
Survival and preparedness for the zombie apocalypse. I don't read ZS as much as I should. They have a large variety of forums covering a plethora of survival-related topics, including those oft-looked over by other forums, including a great First Aid forum. Friendly, fun and seem to be a younger demographic than some of the other survival communities.