Top 10 Survival / Prepper Websites on the Internet

Caution: please judge yourself!

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If you are anything like me you have a long list of favorite survival/prepper websites that you visit everyday.  Each site has its own qualities with respect to appearance, community of followers and specific techniques for trying to reach the public.  With that in mind I decided to rate as many of these sites as possible in order to come up with a top 10 list.  Before I get into the criteria I should mention what made me immediately rule out any of the contenders.  If I logged onto the home page of any one site and was immediately greeted by an annoying pop up ad it was off the table.  I hate pop up ads, and by that I mean I despise them.   That being said let’s get on the with the criteria which I used to review each site.

Initial Appeal:  This happens within the first 3 seconds of visiting a site.  I formulate an immediate impression as to how good/bad I think a site will be mere seconds after visiting a site and you do it as well.  Are the eyes greeted with a pleasing color?  Is it possible to identify within that first 3 seconds what the site is about, or must one dig around through a bunch of strange links and banner ads?  Did someone get overzealous with widgets in addition to .gif ads (bombarded with flashing images) or is there a nice conservative mix of images and text? Like the old phrase goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.   There might have been a site out there with ridiculous amounts of information, a prepper’s dream website, but if I couldn’t get past the first 3 seconds it didn’t have a chance.  Think recruiter with a stack of 500 resumes to go through, each one gets about 3 seconds of consideration before going into the “take a second look ” pile or the trash.

Layout / Navigation:  When you load a page on a site your eyes naturally move from the top left of the page to the right.  Additionally what’s “above the fold” (what you see before you have to scroll down) is most the important content on the page when considering what type of  initial impression it leaves on the visitor.  That said what I’m looking for is ease of navigation, does the information on the page flow or is it a jumbled pile of links and images?  There is nothing wrong with ads but are they placed neatly on the page and are their sizes consistent, or did the website owner not even take the time to standardize the banner sizes (thus leaving the page looking sloppy).  Does the page render properly in IE, FF and Chrome?  Links to other pages or categories should be laid out consistently and easy to find, in the world in which we live if someone cannot find what they are looking for withing 3-5 seconds they are off the page and onto something else.

Relevant Content:  Not only related to survival / prepping, but also as far as variety is concerned.  There should be a good mix of all topics, not just homesteading, or guns and ammo.  Posts should be informative and not random, i.e.  ”I had Applebees for dinner!”  The website NAME should be relevant which alludes to what the site is about.  I should also mention if I click on a link and it gets redirected to yourwebsitename.blogspot.com that’s a no-go right off the bat.  The domain name should correlate with what is displayed on the home page.

Post Frequency:  Preferably there would be updates or new articles daily, but 3-4  times a week still gets a decent score.  If not daily there should definitely be a consistent manner with which updates are made (i.e. every Wed and Sat).  Posting at random is the best way to lose readers because you have to keep them guessing as to when the next post will be.  There are some sites that are more a repository of information rather than daily blogs, and depending on the relevance of the info (and scope) they indeed have a shot of making the list (and some do).

Speed Test:  This one purely data driven, no subjectivity.  I simply went to IWebTool.com,  typed in all of the website addresses I was grading and waited for the results.  A load time was displayed in seconds, which helped to drive the score.  Click here for a screenshot of the test results (note that the order is random).

The Top 10 Survival / Prepper Websites on the Internet

1-Survivalblog.com:  The standard by which all other sites are judged.  JWR’s site is updated daily and his published writing contests bring in a variety of experience of knowledge from all around the globe.  The design is a bit “plain jane” but the information is easy to access and the layout is pleasing.  New and seasoned preppers could visit this site and literally spend hours learning and downloading relevant information.  While this site did have the slowest load time of the bunch, I can only speculate that is because of the sheer amount of data stored on the server and possibly because their server is located in Sweden.

2-SHTFBlog.com:  Another three column blog which loads quickly, has a clean layout and immediately lets you know what the content of the site is about.  Three contributors to the blog give it some great variety and all of the other relevant information (there is lots of it) is easily accessed from links on the right side of the page.  There are quite a few ads but they aren’t “in your face” and are all standardized when it comes to size.

3-TheSurvivalistblog.net:  A very clean website (think google), very minimalistic when it comes to colors (black and transparent) but it works well.  Lots of great information on the site which is very easy to access, and a very active community which contributes in a way which is productive (no internet fights and insults allowed).   Content beyond what is displayed on the main page is easy to access, and the ads are clean and standardized.

4-AmericanPreppersNetwork.com:  A combination website, blog, forum, store and gathering place for preppers from all around the USA.  Tons of relevant information is available via articles written by members, podcasts and videos.  Additionally if one would like to link up with like minded individuals near a specific area this site can help to facilitate that.

5-OffGridSurvival.com:  One of the few sites where a dark theme/layout works well.  Drop down menus above the fold allow the user to quickly access information, with relevant links to the latest articles a popular topics flowing down the right side of the page.  The main page of this site is great, although it doesn’t follow the typical blog (daily update) format it has snapshots of articles from many different categories (outdoor, survival, news, off grid, hunting etc).  I like not having to dig around for information and this site delivers nicely.

6-SurvivalCache.com:  This site is very similar to offgridsurvival.com in that it does not follow the traditional daily update format.  However the sheer amount of information available on the main page along with a very orderly and pleasing layout make this site worth visiting.  I love the fact that on the main page there are no banner ads, very nice indeed.  The site also has a newsletter you can subscribe to and a forum community.

7-GreatNorthernPrepper.com:  A very clean website with an awesome collection of dropdown menus right below the main banner.  You don’t even have to scroll down on the page to find specific articles by category, simply hover over each main topic (e.g. food preps) and a drop down menu is displayed (sometimes with subcategories) which allow you to quickly access information.  There is a link titled New Preppers which is a great thing to have considering how many people are “waking up” these days.  Some of the ads did not render properly when I had the page up (or show up at all), small deductions there but nothing major.

8-TheSurvivalMom.com:  It’s quite obvious that someone with website design skills put this site together, the layout is great and the colors compliment each other nicely.  While content is king this site goes about pleasing the eye quite nicely as well.  Once again dropdown menus are utilized to help the user quickly access relevant information, with recent posts updated quite often just below the fold.  I like the link to “the basics” which is a great place for any new prepper to start.  The ads are clean and out of the way, although one image showed a broken link.  If I had to be picky, I’d wonder why the contact form was displayed in the footer, but that’s just me.

9-SHTFPlan.com:  A great site which offers a mix of survival/prepper articles in addition to daily news (heavy on the news).  This website is updated many times a day with articles and videos.  A clean layout which is easy on the eyes and tons of relevant links down the side of the page to other great websites are a bonus.  The *only* downside to this site is that specific survival/prepper categories (e.g. food storage, water, guns) are not displayed on the front page, but since there are so many articles all you have to do is a search and you are bound to find something worth reading.

10-PrepperWebsite.com:  Not a blog and not particularly at the cutting edge of website design, but nonetheless it’s place on the list is well deserved.  A no frills website which won’t win any design awards however the sheer amount of data compiled on this site is quite impressive.  Think of it more like an information portal where you can not only see the best daily updates from around the web but also access other relevant sites (which are divided by type).  There is also a link to The Preparedness Review (TPR) an insanely popular eReview put together and published by the owner of Prepperwebsite.com.

So there you have it, the list in its entirely and the criteria which was used to create it. What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree and did I miss one of your favorites?

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This article appears courtesy of Prepper-Resources.com, one of the premier prepper/survival blogs online today. Whether you are a new or experienced prepper feel free to visit and check out all of the other valuable information posted there.

Source: http://www.prepper-resources.com/top-10-survival-prepper-websites-on-the-internet/

Photos: Chinese Farmer Builds Apocalypse-Proof ‘Noah’s Ark’ Pods

Somebody out there is preparing for 2012!!!

Liu Qiyuan poses with his pods in Hebei Province in China on Dec. 11, 2012. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Liu was inspired by the blockbuster film “2012” and the massive earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Indonesia and Thailand in 2004 and killed hundreds of thousands, reported AFP.Liu Qiyuan, a Chinese farmer from the village of Qiantun in northern Hebei Province, located just south of Beijing, has built what he describes as “Noah’s Ark” survival pods in case of a cataclysmic event.

He hopes that his circular pods are adopted by government agencies and international organizations in the event of earthquakes and tsunamis.

His seven pods, which are airtight, are made out of a fiberglass shell wrapped around a steel frame. They are able to float on water. Some of them even have their own propulsion device installed.
They also come complete with oxygen tanks and can hold as many as 14 people.

The Dec. 21, 2012, Mayan prophecy, which some people have interpreted as the end of the world, struck a nerve with ordinary Chinese after the “2012” film gained popularity there in 2009.

Last month, it was reported that Lu Zhenghai, a man from Xinjiang, spent some $150,000 dollars to build his own “Noah’s Ark”-like vessel. According to the Daily Mail tabloid, he spend his entire life savings on constructing the ship.

A worker stands beside a survival pod. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

Liu Qiyuan sits inside one of seven survival pods. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

Incomplete survival pods sit in Liu’s workshop. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

Workers reposition one of the pods . (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

Liu secures a hatch inside one his pods. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

Liu poses among his survival pods. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

Liu Qiyuan and his daughter sit inside one of his pods. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

Liu looks out from inside. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

(Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

*Article republished with permission from the The Epoch Times

Electro Magnetic Pulse Effects & Preparedness

Although the US can improve prevention, protection, and recovery in the face of an EMP attack to levels below those that would have catastrophic consequences for the Nation, an EMP attack would still cause substantial disruption, even under the best of circumstances. Many citizens would be without power, communications and other services for days—or perhaps substantially longer—before full recovery could occur. During that interval, it will be crucial to provide a reliable channel of information to those citizens to let them know what has happened, the current situation, when help of what types for them might be available, what their governments are doing, and the host of questions which, if not answered, are certain to create more instability and suffering for the affected individuals, communities, and the Nation as a whole.

EMP and its effects were observed during the US and Soviet atmospheric test programs in 1962. Figure 1 depicts the Starfish nuclear detonation—not designed or intended as a generator of EMP—at an altitude of about 400 kilometers above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. Some electronic and electrical systems in the Hawaiian Islands, 1400 kilometers distant, were affected, causing the failure of street-lighting systems, tripping of circuit breakers, triggering of burglar alarms, and damage to a telecommunications relay facility. In their testing that year, the Soviets executed a series of nuclear detonations in which they exploded 300 kiloton weapons at approximately 300, 150, and 60 kilometers above their test site in South Central Asia. They report that on each shot they observed damage to overhead and underground buried cables at distances of 600 kilometers. They also observed surge arrestor burnout, spark-gap breakdown, blown fuses, and power supply breakdowns.

What is significant about an EMP attack is that one or a few high-altitude nuclear detonations can produce EMP effects that can potentially disrupt or damage electronic and electrical systems over much of the United States, virtually simultaneously, at a time determined by an adversary.

Starfish Nuclear Detonation

 

Gamma rays from a high-altitude nuclear detonation interact with the atmosphere to produce a radio-frequency wave of unique, spatially varying intensity that covers everything within line-of-sight of the explosion’s center point.

The first component (E1) is a free-field energy pulse with a rise-time measured in the range of a fraction of a billionth to a few billionths of a second. It is the “electromagnetic shock” that disrupts or damages electronics-based control systems, sensors, communication systems, protective systems, computers, and similar devices. Its damage or functional disruption occurs essentially simultaneously over a very large area, as illustrated in the figure below.

Illustrative EMP Effects – Fast Pulse (Figure 2)

The middle-time component covers roughly the same geographic area as the first component and is similar to lightning in its time-dependence, but is far more geographically widespread in its character and somewhat lower in amplitude. In general, it would not be an issue for critical infrastructure systems since they have existing protective measures for defense against occasional lightning strikes. The most significant risk is synergistic, because the E2 component follows a small fraction of a second after the first component’s insult, which has the ability to impair or destroy many protective and control features. The energy associated with the second component thus may be allowed to pass into and damage systems.

The final major component of EMP is a subsequent, slower-rising, longer-duration pulse that creates disruptive currents in long electricity transmission lines, resulting in damage to electrical supply and distribution systems connected to such lines (Figure 3). The sequence of E1, E2, and then E3 components of EMP is important because each can cause damage, and the later damage can be increased as a result of the earlier damage. In the example depicted in Figures 2 and 3, about 70% of the total electrical power load of the United States is within the region exposed to the EMP event.

Illustrative EMP Effects – Slow Pulse Protection and Recovery of Civilian Infrastructures (Figure 3)

History professor William R. Forstchen discussed the potential damage rendered by an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) event, and what we can to do prepare for the possibility. There are actually two kinds of potentials for generating an EMP, military or solar, he explained. A nuclear fission weapon, such as Iran or North Korea are currently developing, that is detonated about 250 miles above the Earth’s atmosphere would trigger electrostatic discharge, striking the Earth’s surface and overloading the power grid and knocking it out, he detailed. The Soviets conducted an EMP test in 1962, and a power plant 500 miles away from the center of the detonation burst into flames, because of the EMP overload that fed into the transmission lines, he cited.

by DiscloseTruthTV

Just a few days ago, we were hit by the largest solar storm in five years, and NASA & NOAA have predicted a significantly increased solar storm cycle over the next 18 months, Forstchen noted. A large enough coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun could generate a global-wide EMP event, particularly in the northern and southern latitudes. The “Carrington Event” of 1859 blew out telegraph lines, and the “energy output was so intense that railroad ties were bursting into flames,” he said. Forstchen advocates congressional action to protect America’s grid, such as put forth by Cong. Roscoe Bartlett.  
William R. Forstchen is a Professor of History and Faculty Fellow at Montreat College, in Montreat, North Carolina. He received his doctorate from Purdue University with specializations in Military History, the American Civil War and the History of Technology. His current book, One Second After was cited on the floor of Congress and before the House Armed Services Committee by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R.-MD), chair of the House Committee tasked to evaluate EMP weapons, as a realistic portrayal of the potential damage rendered by an EMP attack on the continental United States. 

William R. Forstchen

An electromagnetic pulse (commonly abbreviated EMP) is a burst of electromagnetic radiation. The abrupt pulse of electromagnetic radiation usually results from certain types of high energy explosions, especially a nuclear explosion, or from a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field. The resulting rapidly-changing electric fields and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges.
The mechanism for a 400 km high altitude burst EMP: gamma rays hit the atmosphere between 20–40 km altitude, ejecting electrons which are then deflected sideways by the Earth’s magnetic field. This makes the electrons radiate EMP over a massive area. Because of the curvature and downward tilt of Earth’s magnetic field over the USA, the maximum EMP occurs south of the detonation and the minimum occurs to the north.



In military terminology, a nuclear warhead detonated hundreds of kilometers above the Earth’s surface is known as a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) device. Effects of a HEMP device depend on a very large number of factors, including the altitude of the detonation, energy yield, gamma ray output, interactions with the Earth’s magnetic field, and electromagnetic shielding of targets.

Preparedness refers to the state of being prepared for specific or unpredictable events or situations. Preparedness is an important quality in achieving goals and in avoiding and mitigating negative outcomes. It is a major phase of emergency management, and is particularly valued in areas of competition such as sport and military science.
Methods of preparation include research, estimation, planning, resourcing, education, practicing and rehearsing.

Survivalism is a movement of individuals or groups (called survivalists or preppers) who are actively preparing for emergencies as well as possible disruptions in social or political order, on scales ranging from local to international. Survivalists often have emergency medical and self-defence training, stockpile food and water, prepare for self-sufficiency, and build structures that will help them survive or “disappear” (e.g. a survival retreat or underground shelter).

Anticipated disruptions include the following: Clusters of natural disasters, patterns of apocalyptic planetary crises, or Earth Changes (tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, solar storms, severe thunderstorms). A disaster caused by the activities of humankind (chemical spills, release of radioactive materials, nuclear or conventional war, oppressive governments). The general collapse of society caused by the shortage or unavailability of resources such as electricity, fuel, food, or water. Financial disruption or economic collapse (caused by monetary manipulation, hyperinflation, deflation, or depression). A global pandemic. Widespread chaos or some other unexplained apocalyptic event.

New York Times: “Survive Societal Collapse In Suburbia” – A ‘How To’ Guide For The Suburbanite

The New York Times has put out a story that many might call a little too late for many New Yorkers but ‘right on time’ for many others who are preparing for the collapse of society. Weeks after Hurricane Sandy slammed the greater New York and New Jersey area, sending countless residents to FEMA camps, the NY Times paints a picture of ‘survivalism’ in a different light.

Touching on ‘the basics’ of survivalism, from stockpiling water and food to emergency gardens, this NY Times story leads little doubt that not only is survivalism now ‘in fashion’, it is also one of the few ‘growth industries’ in America today.

“The preparedness industry, always prosperous during hard times, is thriving again now. In Ron Douglas’s circles, people talk about “the end of the world as we know it” with such regularity that the acronym Teotwawki (tee-ought-wah-kee) has come into widespread use. The Vivos Group, which sells luxury bunkers, until recently had a clock on its Web site that was ticking down to Dec. 21, 2012 — a date that, thanks to the Mayan calendar, some believe will usher in the end times. But amid the alarmism, there is real concern that the world is indeed increasingly fragile — a concern highlighted most recently by Hurricane Sandy. The storm’s aftermath has shown just how unprepared most of us are to do without the staples of modern life: food, fuel, transportation and electric power.”

Is the NY Times now doing their ‘due diligence’ due to the fact that ‘they’ know that something is coming around the corner? Also from the story.:

For the next several minutes, Douglas talked about emergency preparedness, sustainable living and financial security — what he called the three pillars of self-reliance. He detailed the importance of solar panels, gardens, water storage and food stockpiles. People shouldn’t just have 72-hour emergency kits for when the power grid goes down; they should learn how to live on their own. It’s a message that Douglas is trying to move from the fringe to the mainstream.

“Our main goal is to reach as many people and get the word out to as many people as we can, to get them thinking and moving in this direction,” he said. “Sound good?”

Yes, NY Times, that sounds very good! Now, let’s get the rest of America heading in this direction, too, and we’ll have far fewer people living inside of FEMA camps and waiting for the federal government to save them. After Hurricane Sandy, we all know how that’s going to work out for you.