The Prepper’s Triangle Theory
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
First. Before I get started. Let’s get the basics out of the way. What is prepping? Prepping is exactly what you think it is. Setting things aside for a “rainy day”. People put money in a savings account so they have something to fall back on if they lose their jobs as an example.
However, prepping in the sense that I am talking about is setting things back in case something happens. Something that could sever you from basic utilities. It could even be economic hardship that you are setting things back for.
Next you must assess what needs to be set back. The answer is simple. you set items back that are a part of the Prepper’s Triangle.
First of all. I can’t take credit myself for the Prepper’s Triangle. I learned this concept from a Youtuber named Yankeeprepper. I have included his video about the Prepper’s triangle at the bottom of the blog. I encourage you to watch it.
Now, the Prepper’s Triangle is:
- Heat/Shelter
- Food/Water
- Protection
You will need to have shelter from the cold and the other elements. And you will need heat to combat the cold of the winter months as well.
You can live 30 days without food. You can only live three days without water.
You will need protection to keep the shelter and food/water that you have built up.
This is called a triangle for a reason. If you don’t have any one of these things, then the other two are worthless. If you don’t have firearms to protect your other preps…then other desperate people will steal your preps from you and you with freeze/thirst/starve to death.
If you don’t have heat/shelter…then what are you going to protect and where are you going to store your food and water preps.
If you don’t have the food and water, then you won’t be able to live too long anyway. So there’s no point in having shelter or protection for the shelter.
As you can see, one point of the Prepper’s Triangle feeds the other two points. You will not be able to make it in a disaster situation. But if the Triangle is complete. It’s the survivalist’s strongest asset.
Now you might be thinking, “Hey wait. I’ll never be in a situation where I will need any preps”.
You may want to think again.
I lived in North Alabama in late April 2011. Thankfully I lived in a community that was hardly even touched by tornadoes. But one of the tornadoes severed all the lines leaving the local power plant that supplied the community with power. This actually left a large part of North Alabama out of power for nearly a week.
I just thank goodness I had some preps set aside. We still had water…so I didn’t have to go into the water stores. But I went through some of the food stores, though. But guess what? Even with all the prepping…there was one thing I forgot. A way to cook the food.
Thank goodness my family lived within a mile of me. I just lived off the cold canned food for breakfast and lunch. Then went to the grandparents for dinner.
The take-aways are that disasters do happen…no matter how small.
And don’t forget about including a cooking source (like a camping stove) in your preps.
Please feel free to leave your comments and questions below. They are useful in writing new blogs for you guys. And don’t forget to pass this on to your friends and family.
And without further ado…Yankeeprepper’s video on the Prepper’s Triangle.
Until next time…
Sean