Are your Preps Safe? Loosing your preps is a Preppers worst nightmare, however, that is exactly what has happened to some Preppers in Texas and Oklahoma recently. Due to historic flooding and record rainfall in those states many people have been forced to leave their homes ( and their preps ) in what was previously believed to be flood safe areas. Now I don’t know about you, but the thought of loosing everything I have worked so hard to store up is something that I really don’t like to think about. This however, is exactly why we do need to think about it. There are a lot more threats out there than just those that are man made, we have to prepare for all of them, not just some of them. We all have our own scenarios that we think are the most likely to happen and we tend to focus on those threats. We sometimes don’t think abut the natural disasters and what we would do if one of those events occurred. As they say, failing to plan is planning to fail and we definitely don’t want to do that. 
Most of us know that we shouldn’t store all of our preps in one place, but burring it in your back yard or putting them at your Uncles barn down the road is not much better. Your preps should be spread out over a large area such as different places around town. 24 hour access storage buildings are a great option as you can also usually insure the contents incase anything were to happen. This could go a long way to helping you replace whatever you might loose. There are many of these all around the country and usually several in just about any town you can think of. Just be sure to do your homework and make sure that they are in an area that has historically NOT been subject to Flood, Fire and theft.
One person I spoke to was telling me that he keeps all of his preps in the basement of his retreat. Again, never keep all of your preps in any one place, as it is a recipe for disaster. His logic seem to be that if they were not at his home then they would be safe if something happened to it. While this may be true in part, what if something happens to your retreat? What if lightning strikes it and burns it down? What if it falls prey to flood or burglary? Just because it is not at your house, doesn’t mean it is safe. Always use multiple locations over a wide area if at all possible. It is much better to loose only a few preps than all of them.
If you are going to burry them in your back yard ( or any place else for that matter ), Always put them in watertight containers and seal them thoroughly before you burry them. You might even want to dig them up after a couple of months and check to be sure they are not leaking. It would be horrible to believe that you have something safely buried under the ground only to realize that it wasn’t properly sealed when you need it the most. Another thing to think about is that if the ground becomes to saturated with water the a watertight box could actually pop right out of the ground. To prevent this form happening, I suggest that you drive a long piece metal rod such as rebar into the ground directly below where you put the box and attach the box to it using some type of nylon rope or chain that will not rust or rot. This will safely anchor the box and help prevent it from floating out of the ground. While there is no guarantee that anything will work 100%, there are things that you can do to better the odds as you can see.
My heart goes out to all of the people in Texas and Oklahoma that were effected by the rain and flooding, our prayers re with you! To the rest of us, this should serve as a wake up call to re-evaluate our storage options and become better prepared for come what may. As pepper’s, we must plan for all emergencies, such as floods, forest fires, Hurricanes and Tornados, not just the man made ones. Well, I hope I have given you something to think about and maybe an idea or two in the process. Just remember that prepping is a journey, not a destination. Until next time, please stay safe.
