Prioritizing your survival
How the Rule of Threes can guide your prepping
Some of y'all might know this, and some of y'all don't (Let Me Clear My Throat!)…
It’s hard to know where to start when preparing for short or long term survival needs. Ideally, you would only need to know how to get through a couple days away from civilization by yourself, or a couple of weeks sheltering in place (a.k.a. - “bugging in”) at a safe location with supplies to last until an unnamed event blows over. But knowing these things don’t neseccarily help you allocate your finite time and resources to maximize your chances of survival. For that, allow me to introduce “the Rule of Threes.”
For those unfamilar, the Rule of Threes is guidance for your survial decisions based on your physical needs. In the survival community, it is said that you can last three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Of course there are mitigating circumstances to these guidelines, like your individual health and fitness, your environment (hot vs. cold, dry vs. wet, etc.), and your exertion level. However, they still demonstrate the order of priority you should keep in mind once you’ve determined you are in a survial situation.
I won’t spend long on the first priority: air. You either have it or you don’t. Sure, there are long term health effects from bad air qaulity or illness. In those cases, I’d certainly advocate the use of a good filter mask as recommended by the CDC to protect yourself and/or your community. Just be aware that fit and seal are very important when it comes to the effectiveness of such devices. In the military, keeping a clean shave around the jawline was not just for grooming standards, but vital to keeping a good seal in the event that we had to wear some kind of respirator like an EAB.
Next on the agenda is water. Most people reading this will have ready access to either a municipal water supply or a reliable well. There are a couple of scenarios where those sources could either be unavailable or not trustorthy. One such instance would be if you are in the wilderness waiting for rescue. In the case of a lost hiker, the average individual is likely to be found “within 14 hours.” That means you might be in for a rough night, depending on when you left, but you shouldn’t even have to worry about water. If your time in the wilderness lasts longer than that, water will be one of your top priorities alongside shelter. In that case, filtration and disinfection will be keys to making your water safe to drink. We also begin to have a lot of overlap at this point with remaining at a safe location and establishing a safe water supply there in the event of a tainted water supply or power outage. From here, the options are basically the same in either case.
It’s worth stepping back and making a note here that this information on water is neither exhaustive nor all inclusive. This is meant merely to represent the priorities for survival and some possible methods of obtaining safe water. Too many methods are available and too many confounding variables exist for me to list them all here. If there’s a thirst for that knowledge, it’s a subject that I can cover in more detail later.
There are many commerical products that can be used to make your water as safe as possible to drink, including a Lifestraw and Sawyer Squeeze, both of which I own (though I’m not offically endorsing the products, unless they want to send me anything). Boiling is a tried and true method to disenfect water, as are chemical methods like iodine and bleach. This is assuming that you haven’t gathered enough water to sustain your household to ride out any rough periods. How much water should I have on hand, you ask? Conventional wisdom says that 1 gallon per person per day should be enough for drinking, sanitation, and cooking. The casual observer will notice that this adds up inredibly fast if you want to be able to last even a week without your ususal water source. This is multiplied by each familiy member or other person you’re caring for. You may need to triage your water usage or find creative ways to reuse your water. The place you can’t really afford to do without is in your potable water supply. Make sure this is priority #1.
Before moving on to the last factor on the Rule of Threes, I want to make special mention of a factor for survival left out of the priority list: shelter. This is equal in importance to the other items as far as keeping you alive, but also contains the most variables. Shelter includes where you are, what you’re wearing, structures, fire, etc. The order it would be inserted into the list depends on all these things. If you’re the aforementioned hiker waiting for rescue and it’s getting dark, I would put shelter in front of water. You’ll likely make it to morning without water, but nighttime temperatures might require more immediate action. Shelter is like security and it’s best thought of in zones. You’ve got a personal zone, an immediate zone, and an outer zone. Depending on how good each zone is, you might need more or less support in the next zone. Good clothes will mean you can get by with a lower grade shelter, but poor clothing will make a better shelter and having an outide heat source like fire even more valuable. There are many ways to improve each of these zones, some of which are quite inventive. I can’t tell you exactly when to break away from the Big Three and shore up your shelter requirements. I can only tell you to ignore this factor at your peril.
Last on the list is food. Going back to our lost hiker situation, it’s the least likely thing you’ll need to worry about. I won’t engage in a long treatise on foraging, hunting, or trapping. Much like making water safe to drink, there’s too much ground to cover it all here. I will, however, mention that this is a subject that cannot be ignored during long term survival situations. There is an abundance of information of what hunger does to health, memory, decision making, and cognitive function. The longer you go without fulfilling this need, the worse you will perform. So while you can theoretically go for three weeks (or more?) without food, you will begin adversely affect your chances of survial the longer you go without food. Anyone that has gone without eating for even a few days can attest to this.
Since we’re not going to engage in a conversation about food in wild, let’s focus on bugging in. Having a well stocked pantry is your best insurance against fluctuations in food availability due to market forces, weather, or other instability. I understand that this is not easy for everyone based on their financial situation. We are fortuate enough to have a pantry that I feel could support my family for at least a couple of weeks or longer. For your own pantry, focus on staples that have multiple uses and are inexpensive. It sounds basic, but having flour, yeast, and salt can make sure you have bread, which sustained people through many hard times (you don’t even need the yeast if you’re in a pinch and remember how to make a sourdough starter from your time during COVID lockdowns). If you buy canned food, buy at least one extra can of something you normally eat every time you shop. But don’t buy things you don’t eat, like bags of rice or beans if you don’t eat either. Rotate your stores when you can, meaning you should eat oldest items in your panty first when times aren’t bad to maximize your shelf life when things are worse. And don’t forget seasoning! While not a survival need, it can contribute to morale during long term survival situations. As disappointed as you get when you have a bland, flavorless meal, imagine that feeling for days or weeks at a time. In addition, salt is inexpensive and can be used for food preservation if you find yourself in a stiation where everything has gone to shit and we’re all living in the early 1900s again.
If you get beyond those first three weeks as dictated by the Rule of Threes, Congratulations! You are, by my estimation, moving beyond a long term survival situation and into a sustained living situation. Assuming there’s no sign from the traditional mechanisms of power of a return to “normal,” from this point on you will need to focus on building reliable sources of food and water alongside a community; as well as organizing defense, establishing communications, art, music, culture, and all the other things that make like worth living. It’s not about survival anymore, but establishing a new normal.