Issue #010
A flat tarp holds 100 pounds of rain over your head
Plus the compass move that takes five seconds and never needs a battery.
Sunday, August 9, 2026 · Emergency Skills
Two inches of rain on an eight by ten tarp is more than 100 pounds of water. Pitched flat, that weight comes down on you at two in the morning.
3 Skills
1. Pitch it steep, sleep off the ground
Pitch a tarp steep. A 45 degree slope dumps rain instead of pooling it. Stake the low edge close to the ground and tie the ridge line taut with a trucker’s hitch. Under you, stack four inches of leaves, pine boughs, or a closed cell pad. Wet ground steals heat faster than cold air. At home, pick one interior room, close the doors, and hang blankets over the windows.
2. Mark the bridges before you need them
Buy a paper map of your county and a road atlas for your state. Mark home, work, two water sources, and every bridge you would cross. Then name your handrails: a river, a rail line, a ridge, a highway. Those are things you cannot walk past by accident. Set the map flat, lay the compass on it, and turn both until north on the map points north on the needle.
3. The dry wood is inside the wet wood
Rain soaks the outside of wood, not the middle. Split a wrist thick piece down twice and shave curls off the dry heart with a knife. Cotton balls worked with petroleum jelly light wet and burn for two minutes. Build on bark or a flat rock so the ground does not drink your heat. Never burn charcoal or a camp stove inside. Store fuel in a shed, sealed, labeled with the date.
2 Threats On The Radar
1. One hot afternoon, one failed transformer
August is when air conditioning runs all day and the grid runs hot with it. Equipment fails in the afternoon, and dry soil shifting can crack a water main on the same block. Fill two jugs and freeze them now. Learn the manual release on your garage door. Keep small bills in the house, because card readers go down with the lights.
2. Two crowds, one grocery aisle
Late August pulls two crowds through the same store. Back to school shopping and the first coastal storm warnings clean out bottled water, batteries, bread, and canned soup within hours. Do not wait for the announcement. Add three extra shelf stable items you already eat to every grocery trip until you have two weeks of dinners banked. Buy by price per ounce, not by the sticker.
The Drill
Pitch it and hose it today
Today, carry a tarp, four stakes, and 25 feet of cord into the yard. Pitch it steep in under ten minutes. Then run a garden hose over the top for two minutes and crawl underneath. Look for drips along the ridge line and pooling at the corners. Fix what leaks, take it down, and pack it away with the cord already attached.
Stay ready. Rise.
- Survival Rise
P.S. Forward this to the friend whose tarp is still folded in the bag it came in.