You have two days until the anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In Benghazi, terrorists showed that they were eager to reopen America’s wounds by attacking again on 9/11. Today the U.S. faces Al Qaeda, ISIS and an unstable world with porous borders. Anyone could be inside the country and anything could happen on 9/11/2014. The question is, are you ready?
Here are five things you and your family can do to give yourselves the bare minimum amount of preparedness. Just to be on the safe side. We’re not suggesting you run out and buy a self-sufficient mountain retreat (though you could). The things we’re recommending are things you do every day, only instead of waiting until 9/11/2014, you’ll do them on 9/10/2014.
- Fill your car’s gas tank. Easy right? Remember Superstorm Sandy knocking out all the pumps in New Jersey? Much easier to fill up on 9/10 than to be without on 9/11. Take along a couple Jerry-cans if you have them. Long Term: store quite a bit of gasoline at home. Remember to cycle it out on a regular basis.
- Charge your cell phone. New Yorkers will surely remember how valuable working cell phones were on 9/11. With wireline phone lines damaged or jammed with traffic, cell phones picked up the slack. But even cell phones are not completely reliable. Long Term: Buy a satellite phone.
- Withdraw a bit of money from the bank. Keeping $100, $1,000 or $10,000 on hand won’t hurt you in the case of a successful terrorist attack. Small denominations are the best. Long Term: Develop a cache of “Disaster Currencies.”
- Where allowed, be armed. Whether it’s with sharpened pencils, our favored Travel Wrench, or a firearm, have the tools to protect yourself. Long Term: Buy a Henry US Survival AR-7 Rifle for every member of the family old enough to shoot.
- If you don’t have it, get it. If you’ve seen the shelves cleared of water by imminent bad weather, you have some small inkling of what they’d look like after an attack on the power grid. You should have at least five days’ worth on hand. Long Term: Buy a Reliance Hydroller, a hand pump for your well, and keep water on hand at all times.
There you go. Five easy steps to making yourself exponentially more prepared for any adverse events that could occur on 9/11/2014, or any other day.
Hopefully 9/11/2014 will be a day we can peacefully honor and remember those we lost in New York, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, and Libya. The anniversary of the loss of so many innocent Americans should serve as a day for retrospection, contemplation, remembrance, and gratitude.
