My RPCS hat.

Ok, so what the heck is a R.P.C.S. hat? Why do i have one? what does it do? Why is it even worth reading about?  Well, RPCS stands for "realistic prolonged crisis simulation".  This is completely a Ray made up term, so i define it the way i want to.  There is no pride in authorship, so feel free to redefine it as you see fit, if you like the concept.  A lot of preparedness and emergencies seem segmented.  Its food over here, its weapons, its shelter, or communications, or whatever.  Its ready for a hurricane, or wild fires, or power outages.  But in reality its all interconnected and interdependent, and its my RPCS hat that helps me focus on these relationships.

Now at a basic level, it really isn't to important.  A 3 day "bug out bag" will work for a hurricane, blackout, or any short term disaster.  At that point, they are all universal.  And its easy enough to test them.  Just throw the breaker in the basement, or go camping for a weekend and only use your BOB to survive.  But when you begin to plan for longer duration crisis, testing is not as easy.  Thats where the RPCS hat comes in.

Realistic prolonged crisis simulation is thinking about the likely situations, and then looking for the connections and interdependencies that exist.  For example, when storing water, its easy to think about drinking, but water is large ingredient in the cooking process.  Try to cook rice, beans, pasta, meat, chicken almost anything without some water and you will find it almost impossible.  Combine that with food prep and clean up, and your potable water consumption expands greatly. To make a true analysis of your water needs, it takes a conscious effort, and pen and paper, to accurately track usage. The first time i did this it was a real eye opener.  


I know people who say "hey, i'm prepared for an emergency, i have a generator".  Ok, so its been in the corner of the garage and hasn't been started in years... What do you think happened to the fuel inside?  and speaking of fuel, how much do you have? A gallon can that you also use for the snow blower and lawn mower?  So you can keep your fridge and TV going for 6 hours...  and then what? You know the gas stations won't have power either, right?

Prepping for a real extended crisis takes a higher level of analyzation, and to me running a RPCS in your head as you go through a week, and recording your observations, is a critical part of improving the effectiveness of prepping.