Issue #017
Brown rice goes rancid in six months, white rice lasts for years
Plus your one warm room, a compass drill, and why late August storms travel the farthest.
Sunday, August 16, 2026 · SHTF Preparedness
Brown rice keeps its oily bran, and in a garage that hits 110 degrees that oil turns in about six months. White rice, with the bran stripped off, sits on the same shelf for years.
3 Skills
1. Fat spoils, starch keeps
Oil is what goes bad. Brown rice, nuts, and whole wheat flour turn rancid in a hot garage. White rice, dry beans, pasta, sugar, salt, and honey ride out the heat. Store them in sealed totes on a shelf, never on concrete. Write the month on every lid. To cook with no power, pour boiling water over rice or pasta in a wide mouth thermos, seal it, wait forty minutes.
2. Pick the warm room in August
Pick your one warm room now, while it is easy. Small, interior, one exterior wall at most, close to the bathroom. Hang a blanket over the doorway, roll a towel against the gap under the door, and tape clear plastic over the windows. Keep two tarps and a roll of duct tape for a torn roof or a leaking window after a storm. Sleep on a pad, not the floor.
3. Odd runs north, even runs east
Buy a paper state map and a county map. Mark home, work, school, and three ways out of your area that do not share a bridge. Circle every water crossing. Learn the road rule: odd numbered highways run north and south, even numbered run east and west. For the compass, hold it flat, turn the dial to your bearing, box the needle, then pick a landmark ahead and walk to it.
2 Threats On The Radar
1. The Atlantic gets busy after mid August
Late August is when Atlantic storms start forming off Africa and crossing the whole ocean. That gives you days of warning, and those days go fast. Today, photograph every room and your paperwork, then send the photos to yourself. Find your evacuation zone on your county site and write it on the fridge. Keep the truck above half a tank from now through October. Out west, the same weeks bring dry lightning and fast brush fires.
2. Cheapest produce of the year is sitting there now
Late August is peak harvest. Produce stands and stores are overloaded, and prices will not be this low again until next summer. That is your window to build food storage cheap. Buy tomatoes, peppers, and onions in bulk. Dehydrate what you can, freeze the rest in flat bags, and can only if you have followed a tested process before. Label everything with the month. Shop early, before the car turns into an oven.
The Drill
One mile, paper only, today
Today, put your phone in your pocket and leave it there. Take the paper map and walk or drive one alternate route out of your neighborhood, the one you never use. Note three landmarks you could find at night: a water tower, a steeple, a bridge. Mark them on the map in pen. Time the route. Fold the map and leave it in the vehicle.
Stay ready. Rise.
- Survival Rise
P.S. Tomorrow: the three items in your bag that expire without ever telling you.