PVC/ABS/etc. Survival Cache

[AZ Prepper]

Some ideas regarding survival cache's....

*Be sure to use lots of desiccant (silica gel) in these to absorb the moisture.


(Note: DO NOT use a mixture of ABS and PVC together.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrK3Gi6QNsU



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rT40EMosK4



How to Make a Rifle Bury Tube for Under $2
(just thought this was interesting...)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLISsCyi5EI

[AZ Prepper]

Caching Your Goods
http://www.captaindaves.com/guide/cache.htm


Of concern to many survivalists is long term storage of supplies in a safe location protected from both accidental exposure and those aggressively searching for your stash. For this reason, creating a cache (rhymes with stash) of items you believe you will need in a survival situation is a good plan for any serious survivalist.

Captain Dave found creating a cache on a boat is difficult, with the best option being a variation of the 18th century pirate's buried treasure. For most land-bound survivalists, however, creating a cache of emergency goods is less of a challenge, as you will see below:

There are two types of caches:

Basic Caches

These caches can be in a closet, basement, local storage company or other, relatively easy-to-access location. They are normally protected by locks or other traditional security measures and some discretion on your part (you know -- keeping your mouth shut.) The basic stash should include all your survival items (covered in chapters three, four and five). Because these caches are accessible, you can rotate items in and out as necessary.

Basic caches can simply be food, water and other necessities on shelves, in boxes and bags or in cupboards set aside just for that purpose. A lock on the door can keep family members from rifling supplies (when the portable stereo needs batteries, for example) and nosy neighbors or guests from uncovering your preparedness stash.

On-site caches in basements or closets (for those areas such as Florida, where basements are as rare as snowballs in April) are convenient, available in most emergencies and facilitate adding new items and rotating out canned goods, water and other perishables.

Off-site caches, as discussed briefly in Chapter Two, allow you to stash items near your survival retreat. Should you choose a commercial mini-storage unit near your residence, it gives you more room for goods than you might have at home. In this manner, you could keep two weeks worth of food at home, and store several months worth or more in a rented storage unit.

The danger inherent in off-site storage is that you will not be able to protect your stash from marauders (should our system of law and order break down) or natural disasters, such as an earthquake. You must also consider transportation concerns. How easy will it be to reach the 20 cases of MREs you have squirreled away in that storage unit 15 miles outside of town? If the disaster is of such a magnitude that you need them, can you get to them?

Hidden Caches

Like buried treasure, these caches are protected from discovery by burial, creating secret compartments in walls and floors, etc. To preserve the secrecy, you shouldn't visit these caches more than annually, so there is little or no opportunity for adding or removing items. This means items stored in hidden cache must be suitable for long-term storage, possibly 10 or more years.

One of the key benefits of a hidden cache is that you can store items that may be -- or may become -- illegal to own. You may not wish to give up your fully automatic weapon or that high-capacity assault rifle, but future legislation may be such that you don't want to be caught with it in your home. While Captain Dave does not advocate the breaking of laws, he is a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and an individual's right to own a gun, even one with a magazine capacity that exceeds most gun control advocate's IQ.

Coincidentally guns and ammunition are one of the most popular items to be stored in a hidden cache. And why not, when imported SKS rifles can be had for not much more than $100? When specially prepared for long term storage (usually packed in cosmoline or grease) guns can and have been successfully stored for decades. Ammo should be packed in sealed surplus military ammo boxes or sealed in tins. A dab a sealant around the primer is a good idea for those who reload. You can further increase the seal of steel ammo cans by spray painting the sealed can with primer and or paint. If you use colors, these can serve to identify food, ammo and first aid supplies so when you dig them up, you can grab what you really need.

Other items for long-term storage include gold and silver. It is commonly held that paper money will have little or no value after a cataclysmic disaster (plague, revolution, nuclear event, etc.) but that silver and gold will always have some value. Other items with a possible barter value, such as knives or hand tools, may also be stored.

Evaluate your personal needs, cache location and long term survival plan to determine what you need to store. Perhaps a good knife, hatchet, frying pan and tin cup are your choices. Maybe a box of fish hooks, lead sinkers and line is on your list. Use the information presented in this guide to develop your list, but keep in mind that not everything is suitable for long-term storage.

Creating Your Cache

The ideal cache is one that is buried off the beaten path in a location you can remember. There are a number of items sold today specifically for burial. These include sonar buoy tubes and PVC pipes six or more inches in diameter. But it is also possible to build your own storage device our of plywood or other lumber. The tubular design is intended to be buried in a vertical position, to minimize the signature should someone with a metal detector try to locate it, but manually digging a hole two feet in diameter and eight feet deep is easier said than done.

There's nothing wrong with a cube or rectangular box built out of 2x4s and treated plywood. Of course, the box must be strong enough to keep the walls from collapsing, as well as supporting the weight of at least 18 inches of dirt on top. Because a plywood box -- even one lined with plastic -- will not prevent moisture from penetrating, items inside the box must be stored in sealed ammo boxes, plastic buckets or other waterproof containers.

Once you have built your box or purchased your tube, assembled and packed your items for long-term storage, you will need to transport everything to the cache location. While you may be able to make most of the trip by car, you will probably have to trek everything to the site on foot, perhaps under the guise of a backpacking trip (if you are caching your material on public land). Of course, if you have your own retreat, the entire process becomes much simpler. While many would recommend digging your cache in the middle of night, if you pick a secluded enough site, this may not be necessary. Clever camouflage or misdirection can be used to allow you to bury your material without attracting undue attention.

For long term, secret storage, caches should be buried in secluded areas, on ground high enough to avoid flooding, in open areas where tree roots won't be an immediate problem. If you are choosing to bury your goods near your retreat, pick an area where there are metal scrap or junk around that would hide a your stash from a metal detector or an area scan. They have radar and sonar that can identify buried minerals.

If you are using tubes or caches with limited capacity and need multiple caches to accommodate all your goods, bury them in a geometrical pattern. If your caches are buried in a line, 50 feet apart, or a square, finding one cache will allow you to quickly locate the others.

Finding Your Cache

There's nothing worse than realizing you can't remember the exact location of your cache, filled with more than $1,500 worth of supplies.

To prevent your cache becoming a brain twister for future archaeologists, you must not only pick your spots very carefully, but draw or mark a map of the location. While you should obviously memorize the location, storing partial directions in your home survival stash is not a bad idea. Unless you are hiding contraband, a complete map should be stored in your safe deposit box. This will allow your family or loved ones to benefit from your advanced planning (or at least recover your goods) should you meet an untimely demise.

While Captain Dave recommends marking a tree or bolder in the areas, painted blazes on trees are likely to attract unwanted attention, and can fade over the years. Carving a set of fictitious initials on a tree, however, will help you confirm you are in the correct location without giving away the store.

To test your ability to find your cache, return to the site two years after burying it and try to locate your loot. You don't need to dig it up, just dig enough to confirm you are in the correct spot.


Bug out or Batten Down?
http://www.captaindaves.com/guide/bugout.htm


Should you Stay or Go?

Based on the previous section, you should have a good idea of the potential survival situations you might be facing. Now the question is whether to stay and face them or move to another -- hopefully safer -- location.

We all have a strong desire to protect what's ours. Regardless of whether you own the largest house in the neighborhood or rent a ramshackle shack, home is where the heart is, not to mention all the rest of your stuff! And Captain Dave knows you've worked long and hard to accumulate that stuff, so abandoning it and running for safety may stick in your craw.

Thankfully, there are times when saying at home makes the most sense. If you can wait out the storm, ignore the heavy snow, batten down the hatches against civil unrest or otherwise stay at home during an emergency situation without endangering yourself, it may be your best bet. There are many advantages to staying home in a survival situation, if you can safely do so:

• The food in your refrigerator and pantry can supplement your survival stash (see the next chapter).
• If you loose power, you can quickly cook much of your food and monitor the temperature of your freezer (frozen food will usually keep at least 24 hours).
• You'll have more time to improve your home's chances of survival (move items to high ground, put plywood over windows, etc.)
• It offers shelter against most elements.
• You'll have access to all your clothing, bedding and other comforts.
• You won't suffer from boredom as much as you might in a shelter.
• You can protect your stuff from looters.

Of course, there's a downside as well:

• You could be putting yourself in unnecessary, life-threatening danger. (The fire, flood, hurricane, riot, etc. might be worse than anticipated. We've all seen TV coverage of people clinging to their roofs as the house washes down stream.)
• If you decided to evacuate later, it may be too late.
• Without heat, electricity, hot water or other services, home just isn't the same.
• There is no sense of community, unless other neighbors or members of your local survival group stay home, too. You may feel cut off and alone.
• If a mandatory evacuation has been ordered, you may be prosecuted by local authorities (although this rarely happens).

No matter how much you wish to stay at home, there are times when evacuation is the only choice. These include a nuclear, chemical or biological event as well as any impending disaster that is likely to destroy your home. For example:

• If the warning sirens on that nearby chemical plant go off at 3 a.m., you have no choice but to don your gas masks, grab your bug out bag and drive the opposite direction as quickly as possible.
• If you're beach-front home is directly in the path of a Force 3 hurricane, staying put might show a surplus of guts, but deficit of brains.
• Likewise the time you spend, garden hose in hand, trying to fend off a raging fire that has already burnt out six neighbors might be better spent salvaging your valuables and items with sentimental value.

So, if the survival situations you outlined in the previous section shows several emergency situations requiring evacuation, you'll need to put together a plan:

The Evacuation Plan

There are several important elements to your evacuation plan:

• Where to go
• How to get there
• What to bring with you

Where to Go

Sure, you can head to the nearest shelter, but if sitting on cots at the local high school gymnasium or National Guard Armory was your first choice, you probably wouldn't be reading this.

You need a safe house or survival retreat in a location where the current crisis will not threaten you. The easiest way to set up a safe house is to coordinate with a friend or family member located between 100 and 150 miles away, preferably in a different setting. For example:

• If you're in the inner city, they should be in a rural area or at least a smaller town, preferably not the suburbs of your city
• If you're near the coast, they should be inland
• If you're near a flood plain, the safe house should be on higher ground.

Following these guidelines, you can be relatively sure of several things:

• Whatever disaster you are facing should not affect them, and vice versa. This allows you to trade off, so when they are facing a survival situation, your home can be their safe house.
• You'll be running towards something, not just away from danger.
• You can get there on one tank of gas, even if there is a great deal of traffic (During the Hurricane Opal evacuation in 1995, it was not unusual for a 100 mile trip on the interstate to take four hours).
• You won't be turned away at the inn (Hotel rooms are quickly filled, and often at inflated prices).

If you plan in advance, you can leave a few changes of old clothes, a toiletries kit, necessary prescription drugs, ammunition, some MREs or anything else you might need at the safe house. This will make your evacuation easier.

While many will find that a friend or relative's house is the easiest and most cost-effective safe house, the ultimate safe house or survival retreat would be a second residence located in a very rural location. During normal times, this survival retreat can double as your vacation home, hunting lodge or weekend getaway destination. But when the flag goes up, you can evacuate to a safe house fully stocked with everything you need for self sufficiency.

Captain Dave's ultimate survival retreat would be:

• Well off the beaten track, ideally reachable by a single dirt road. This seclusion will offer you a good bit of protection. For example, you can cut a large tree down across the road to help eliminate unwanted guests.
• Not too ostentatious, so that it doesn't draw a lot of talk from locals and become a target for vandalism. Nothing wrong with a solid one-room cabin with a sleeping loft.
• Near a spring, well, stream or other natural source of water.
• Equipped with at least one fireplace or wood stove for cooking and heat.
• Within 10 to 20 miles of a village or small town where you can go (by foot, if necessary) for additional supplies, news and other contact with the outside world, should the emergency stretch into months or longer.
• Have enough arable land for growing your own vegetables and other crops.
• Near a natural, easily harvestable food source (usually wildlife for hunting or fishing).
• Provisioned with enough food to keep your family safe for at least three months, preferably a year.
• Provisioned with tools necessary for long-term self sufficiency, should it become necessary.
• Stocked with enough weapons and ammunition to defend it from small groups of marauding invaders, should it come to that.

If you are worried about caching goods in a unattended house, where they could be stolen, you can cache a supply nearby. While most caches are buried in hidden locations, a simple solution to this dilemma is to rent a commercial storage unit in a town close to your retreat. This has several advantages:

• As long as you have access to the facility 24 hours a day (one of those outside storage areas where you use your own lock is best) you can get to your supplies when necessary.
• It will be much easier to make a few trips to and from the nearby storage facility and your safe house than carry everything with you from home.
• It's easier to check on the status and add materials to this type of cache than one buried in a secluded location.
• In a worst case scenario, you can hoof it to the storage area, spend the night inside and hike back the next day with a full backpack.

Of course, for the ultimate protection, a buried or other hidden cache is hard to beat. The is especially true for the long-term storage of ammunition and weapons that are or may one day be considered illegal. Here are some specifics on establishing this type of a cache.

How to Get to Your Safe House

Whichever option you've chosen for your safe house, the best way to get there is by car. It's convenient (most of us have them), offers some protection, is relatively fast and allows us to carry much more gear than on foot or bicycle.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with taking a train to a safe house in a nearby city. Captain Dave is partial to boats, and even a bus beats walking, but for most, the car is our escape vehicle of choice.

While everyone chooses a car that fits their lifestyle and budget, a large four-wheel drive vehicle is the best bet for evacuating to your safe house. The bigger, heavier the vehicle is, the better. Not only do larger vehicles have greater ground clearance and the ability to ford higher waterways, they offer the most protection and carry the most gear. They also offer you and your passengers better protection in a fender-bender. When the entire city seems to be running from an impending disaster, you don't want to be stuck on the side of the road because of minor accident.

Four-wheel drive is critical if you need to go off-road to avoid accidents, road blocks or other evacuation-related snafus.

So, since an army surplus army truck is probably out of the question, a large four-wheel drive pick-up with a cap may be the best bug out vehicle available. But the fact is, whatever vehicle (or vehicles) you have at hand is the best bet.

And the old saw about never letting your car's gas tank get below half makes a lot of sense. Captain Dave also recommends keeping a couple of five gallon tanks of gas on hand "for emergencies." Even if you use it to fill your tank, carry it with you (strapped to the roof, perhaps) because you never know when you might find more. If you are very serious, you can have a second tank installed in your truck.

And while we're on the subject of cars, make sure your is is good mechanical condition.

Taking the High Road

One of the most critical factors is route planning. You should have memorized several routes to your safe house or survival retreat and have maps on hand so you can identify alternate routes around accidents or other problem areas. The routes should include:

The fastest, most direct route.

This will be your first choice when you are getting out early, before the crowds. If you're smart enough to beat the rush, predict an upcoming disruption, or just feel like being far away from any federal buildings on every April 19, you can take your main route.

A back road route.

This may be your best bet when the interstates are clogged with lines of cars all trying to leave "ground zero." Sure, it would normally take longer, but it in this situation, it may be your best bet.

An indirect route.

There may be a time when you need to get away, but don't want anyone to know where you're going. There may come a day when it make sense to go north 200 miles out of your way to end up 150 miles east of your destination. This is also the route to choose if you have reason to believe you may be followed.

What to Bring With You

Captain Dave keeps a bug-out bag in the closet. A bug-out bag is the first -- and possibly only -- thing you grab when you're bailing out. When the fire alarm is going off, for example, grab the kids, the bug-out bags and get out.

Bags, you say? Yes, bags. Each member of the family should have his or her own bug out bag.

What should you include in your bug-out bag? Ask 100 people, and you'll get 100 answers, but here's what Captain Dave suggests:


Must Haves

• At least $500 in cash, including plenty of small bills for incidentals and change for phone calls. (When the power is out, many stores can't use their cash registers and insist on either exact change or to the closest dollar.)
• Spare or duplicate credit cards with plenty of credit available.
• A few spare checks and anything that could be used for ID if you do not have your wallet with you.
• A spare set of keys, including car, house, safe-house/survival retreat, storage facility, safe deposit box, etc.
• A change of clothes, preferably durable heavy-weight clothes that can stand up to abuse.
• A pair of old, comfortable, already-broken-in shoes that still have some good miles left in them.
• At least a quart of water per person.
• A few MREs or other easily transportable food items, including some quick snack foods.
• Prescription or over-the-counter drugs you rely on.
• A spare pare of eyeglasses (perhaps your old prescription) and/or contacts and solutions.
• A basic first aid kit, including bandages, an ace-type bandage, aspirin or other analgesic, first-aid cream, alcohol pads, etc.
• A phone book listing all important numbers, including friends, family, neighbors, work, school, doctor, insurance, etc.
• A good work knife and/or Swiss army-type knife.
• For those so inclined, a basic pistol, such as a revolver chambered for .357 or .38 special, and at least 50 rounds of ammunition.

Nice to Have

• Traveler checks. Gold or silver coins. Dimes, quarters and half-dollars minted before 1965 contain 90 percent silver. A gold Maple Leaf or other large coin may be too big for day-to-day transactions, but smaller gold coins are available.
• A bank card for local and national ATMs. (This assumes the electricity is not out.)
• A duplicate drivers license.
• You can stash a spare set in your vehicle for emergencies.
• A season-appropriate jacket and other outer gear, such as gloves and hat. Clothes suitable for layering (T-shirt, flannel shirt, etc.).
• A couple pairs of extra socks and at least one change of underwear.
• Juice boxes or pouches.
• Unfilled prescriptions you can take to a pharmacy anywhere to be filled.
• A duplicate of your standard opthamalic eye-wear and/or a few pairs of daily or extended-wear contacts.
• A more advanced first aid kit, including sutures, antibiotics, pain killers, etc.
• A cellular phone and/or CB radio.
• A Leatherman survival tool.
• Loaded speedloaders or magazines and a comfortable belt and holster.

[Kelly Alwood]

very good stuff...a great idea for EVERYONE! i like to use a lot of buckets with screw on lids...

[AZ Prepper]

very good stuff...a great idea for EVERYONE! i like to use a lot of buckets with screw on lids...

Have you had any moisture leaks with using Gamma lids?

[Kelly Alwood]

never a problem with the gamma lids..however, some other types of screw ons have leaked...the gamma lids dont need any mods to keep airtight, but the other ones ive had to cauck, or expandable foam seal...that worked to seal them, but then the lids wouldnt screw off...i now use only gamma lids..