Jared Matkin

The dog days of summer have definitely been bearing down on a lot us over the past few months. In this kind of intense heat you won’t see many people out having a run or even working in the garden unless the sun has disappeared or hasn’t emerged yet. It’s true that when it gets this hot it’s hard to do much of anything, let alone think about what you might try and do to stay cool if you had no power, and thus, no air conditioning. But it’s also a great time for this emergency preparedness reminder.Thinking about days...

Although the Extreme 350 Adventure Kit is the kind of versatile product that can be used in a number of situations, this portable solar panel and power pack combine to make a powerful and reliable system perfect for emergency preparedness and outdoor adventures. Designed to perform when you need it most, the Extreme 350 Adventure Kit is the intelligent alternative to fuel operated generators. Extreme 350 BatteryThis is an extreme power pack, and that’s why the unit comes in at about 27 pounds. Not necessarily the kind of battery you want to have in your backpack, but definitely one with...

For those of you not completely familiar with the concept of the Worst Case Scenario you can check out an earlier post I wrote about turning this concept into blog entries involving emergency food storage, survival kits and overall emergency preparedness with scenarios that could happen, but also might be very unlikely. So today I wanted to rekindle that idea and present a worse case scenario situation I’ve been thinking about recently. My house is 110 years old, and to access the cellar you’ve got to go outside and down a crooked set of concrete steps underneath my deck. It’s...

I’ve always had a few battery powered emergency preparedness flashlights tucked away in various spots in my house just in case of a power outage, but they rarely ever get used. In fact, I kind of forget about them until I happen upon them by accident, or open a drawer and notice that for some reason the light is actually on. Having a backup light with a dead battery that you’ve hidden from yourself is not an effective way to be prepared for a blackoutThat’s why portable solar panel and crank flashlights are an important part of an emergency preparedness...

If you’ve never actually wrapped up in an emergency blanket it may be hard to believe there’s any great benefit in including this tiny little sheet in your survival kit. I guess you could probably say I was a nonbeliever until I was actually forced to use one out of necessity in the back of an old station wagon that broke down on a cold desert highway (true story, but one for another time). The point is, there is always an emergency blanket in my survival kit now.This nifty little invention has many names. You may hear it called a...