Why a Survivor Library?

What is it and why should anyone care?

There are many websites, books, videos and classes

that teach “Survival Skills”. How to make

water safe to drink. How to build a weather proof

shelter from available materials. How to build

a fire. How to operate in a tactical combat

environment to neutralize raiders seeking your

food supplies.

All of them deal primarily with the immediate

effects of a disaster and how to survive them.

All of these are excellent skills to have. A

year’s worth of food is an excellent way to help

safeguard yourself and your family in the event of

an emergency or a large scale disaster.

Unfortunately many large scale disasters such as

Solar or Nuclear EMP events, Pandemic disease or

Cyber warfare could result in a collapse of what

has become an increasingly fragile technological

and industrial infrastructure. The collapse of

that infrastructure means the likely death of the

majority of the people affected. Some scenarios

have expected death rates of as high as 90% within

a few months.

The Survival Skills most often taught and

disseminated will get you through the immediate

danger.

Few if any of these resources focus on what

happens afterwards beyond speaking of “planting

a garden”.

What happens AFTER the Solar Flare that destroys

the electrical grid and all electronics? AFTER

the other 90% of the population has died from

starvation, dehydration and disease. AFTER the

roving gangs and raiders are eliminated and local

communities form to provide security and relative

peace.

What Then?

The factories are gone. The transportation

system has stopped. Now it’s time to start

planning for the long term, for your children and

grandchildren.

The infrastructure that crashed can’t be

“turned back on”. The local power plant

can’t be restarted when the coal it uses comes

from several states away which was transported by

trains which depended on diesel fuel refined in

other states and delivered by pipelines which no

longer function. The infrastructure is too complex

to simply be switched back on.

Tools and equipment and supplies can be salvaged

for a while but will inevitably run out. There

is only so much fertilizer stored in stores and

warehouses. There are only so many batteries and

flashlight bulbs in inventory. It will all run out

in time and no one will be making replacements.

Which means you will have to build a new

infrastructure which can eventually replace what

was lost.

But how? No one has those skills or knowledge

any longer. The cell phones don’t work and we

can’t build digital radios any longer and we

don’t know how to build a telegraph system.

The Library contains many books on telegraph

systems. It has numerous books on how to build

simple radios. It has books on how to build a wire

based telephone system from the simplest pieces

of equipment up through how to build a telephone

exchange and lay wires.

Once the fuel runs out the cars and trucks stop

do you know how to build a carriage to put behind

a horse? Do you know how to make the tackle with

which to attach the carriage TO the horse? There

are books on that. There are books on building

sailing vessels and steamships. Books on how to

build steam engines to put in steamships.

The library contains thousands of books on

technologies that can be produced by most

reasonably skilled craftsman using tools not as

sophisticated as what can be found in many modern

home workshops.