The World In Which We Live

Disasters and emergencies happen all the time. They are the rule in the United States – not the exception. Depending upon where you live, you may have a greater or lesser chance of being exposed to one. For example, if you live in the Rocky Mountain West or California, drought, wildfires and mudslides are common. In the Heartland Mid-west, tornadoes and river flooding are found. Along the Southern East Coast and the Coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes hit with regularity. And these are only some of the more prevalent weather related disasters. In addition, we live with accidents, health crises, and man-made problems such as crime, conflicts, pollution, smog, contamination; as well as a myriad of other troubles.  

Wherever you live in the world, there are inherent dangers that are affected by weather, geography and man. Some can be mitigated. Some can be avoided. Some you just live through and do the best you can. There doesn’t seem to be any place that is untouched at one time or another.

 If you are like me, you want yourself and your family to be safe in such times. But, how do you do that?

There are a number of people who believe in the end-of-the-world kind of scenarios. They use the term SHTF, which means s*** hits the fan. They mean this to be an apocalyptic type of scenario where it becomes “every man for himself.” They are called “preppers” and they spend their time in stockpiling guns, ammunition, food and other supplies and usually have some place that they plan on escaping to, like a cabin in the woods. They talk about nuclear war or an electromagnetic pulse or some other catastrophe that will end civilization as we know it.

If you have this kind of fear. And I believe that this is an irrational fear. Then, you should look elsewhere for help. There are plenty of web sites and people teaching all sorts of things along this line. You won’t have a problem finding them.

I am not one of those kinds of people.

I am both an optimist and a pragmatist.

I am optimistic about people and the world. I look for the good in people and I usually can find it. Look at the world that we have built together. It is not perfect. There is still much work to do to end poverty and hunger and homelessness. But, together we do OK.

But, like I mentioned earlier, I am pragmatic. There are dangers and perils in this world of which it is wise to be aware and for which it is wise to be prepared.

Hence this web site.

I and my family have lived all over the world and in all parts of the United States. I am a retired US Army Colonel with 30 years of military experience. I and my family have lived through a lot of tough times and we have a lot of experience with disasters. Check out our Experiences page to see a listing of just some of the things we have gone through. We’ve done OK and we’re still here.

Now it is time to give back.

I believe that there are quite a few individuals – like me – who just want their families to be safe and they want to start preparing for whatever they think may happen. I’m talking to you.

You want to develop skills, knowledge and abilities and you want to have the proper resources on hand so that when disaster comes, you’re going to be OK.

I want to help.

Eventually, I hope that this site will be a place where we can have multiple conversations about a wide range of preparedness topics and that the record of these conversations can help each of us in our time(s) of need.

How The Site Is Organized

Once upon a time I was a Battalion Commander. My staff and I were preparing a large group of Soldiers to deploy to Iraq for war. As part of their training, we had a variety of vehicle exercises where we used live ammunition, pyro-techniques, paint-ball style ammunition, role players, enemy forces (OPFOR) and scripted scenarios. We would create certain scenarios and my Soldiers would have to use their training to effectively negotiate the scenario and continue with their mission. One young Sergeant, freshly returned from a tour in Iraq, took me aside and told me, “Sir, this is not the way we did it in Iraq when I was there. We’re learning the wrong things.”

His concern were the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) that we were following. These are the “what to do” and “how to do” steps when certain situations arise.

I told him, “Sergeant, I understand your concern. It is impossible for us to train on all of the TTPs being used in all of the regions of Iraq. What we can train you on is the use of a set of TTPs and then train you to trust your chain of command and your training so that you don’t think when you have difficulties. You simply react.”

It was true. The different areas of Iraq had different TTPs depending on the kind of enemy our forces were facing and the kind of threats they encountered. The Iraqi TTPs were constantly changing and evolving. For example, at the beginning of the war, almost nobody in the US Military had any experience with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). At the time that this training was happening, roughly three years into the war effort, we knew a lot about IEDs and the wide variety of ways they were used. We couldn’t teach them everything. But, we could teach them some things.

We taught them principles that guided their actions and decisions.

We taught them personal attributes that, when incorporated into their psyche, also helped them think in certain ways, coming up with viable solutions to problems that we could not anticipate.

We taught them individual combat skills and collective (or team) combat skills.

We taught them to trust each other and their leadership.

We also taught them TTPs. We called them “Battle Drills.”

We knew that, out of all that we were teaching, the TTPs were the most likely to change depending upon the region where they were deployed and the type of enemy they encountered. In all probability, they would learn new ones.

But, in the meantime, they trusted their chain of command. They made split-second decisions based upon deeply held personal attributes and principles. They could adapt and they were flexible.

My approach to this site is much the same.

There are a million sites that can tell you how to start a fire and make water safe to drink. This site will have instructions like that. Or links to other sites that we find particularly good at this kind of instruction. I have developed a core set of skills – both individual and collective – that I believe will be helpful in many situations.

But, more importantly, we want you to be able to think and be flexible.

There are several guiding principles that you need to understand and master.

There are several personal attributes that are helpful for you to incorporate in your persona.

These will help you in any situation to be able to take the resources that you have available to you and apply it to your situation in order to solve your problems and help you and your family survive well.

So, we concentrate on principles and personal attributes.

We train on individual and collective skills that you will find a bit different from other preparation web sites.

And we practice in order to develop “muscle memory.”

A wise Command Sergeant Major once told me, “When the going gets tough, we don’t rise to the occasion, we sink to the level of our training.”

We hope that you have fun while at our site.

That you engage with us and with the community.

That you can be a little better prepared for whatever life throws at you.

That you, too, can be a Sensible Survivor.

The Sensible Survivor is the dream of Colonel Chris Lamoureux, US Army (Retired). After 30 years in the Army, it’s time to give back to the community. He and his family have been through a lot of natural disasters – earthquakes, floods, wildfires, major illness, ice storms, power outages, hurricanes, etc. Through it all, they were extremely blessed to have been ready. COL (R) Lamoureux started The Sensible Survivor (found at www.sensiblesurvivor.org) in order to teach people how to become self-reliant in any emergency. Whether a simple power outage lasting for only a few hours or a natural disaster forcing evacuation, folks that are prepared ease the burdens placed on the first responders and are usually able to help others instead of requiring help.

Chris has 30 years of experience with the United States Army. His military career includes international, operational, and logistical assignments with the Active Component, the US Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard. Besides living through more disasters than he or his wife would like to count, he has also been a proud participant in numerous military operations that supported natural disaster relief efforts as far away as Pakistan and as close to home as Hurricane Katrina.