A bare attic hatch is a two foot hole in your ceiling insulation
Plus the two staples to double up on this month, and a map drill with your phone in the glovebox.
Issue #042 Sunday, September 20, 2026 Emergency Skills
Your ceiling insulation stops at the attic hatch. That bare panel is a two foot gap between your warm hallway and a cold attic.
3 Skills
1. Seal the hole above your hallway
Warm air stacks at the ceiling and leaves through the attic hatch. Most hatches are a thin sheet of plywood resting on trim with no insulation on top. Cut two layers of rigid foam board to the hatch size and glue them to the upper face. Run adhesive weatherstrip around the frame lip. Add a hook and eye so the panel pulls down tight. Do the same for pull-down attic stairs with a foam tent box.
2. Handrails and backstops on paper
Buy a county road map and a topographic sheet for your area. Mark your home, then trace two handrails you can follow on foot: a river, a rail line, a ridge, a power line cut. Behind each, mark a backstop, a long road or waterway you cannot cross without noticing you went too far. Fold the map so your neighborhood shows and keep it in the glovebox. Paper works when towers do not.
3. Dry platform, then strike
Wet ground steals heat and kills a young flame. Lay a platform of finger thick sticks or a slab of bark before anything else. Split standing dead wood and shave the dry inner face into curls. Stack from matchstick size up to wrist size before you strike. Keep open flame outside. Any heater you run indoors needs a vented flue, fresh air, and a working carbon monoxide alarm. Store fuel cans outside the living space.
2 Threats On The Radar
1. Storm season squeezes the staple aisle
September is the peak of hurricane season. One flooded interstate or closed port thins shelves states away from the storm. Cooking oil, rice, and canning lids move first. Pick two staples your household eats every week and buy one extra unit each grocery trip until you hold four weeks of both. Mark the purchase month on each lid with a marker and eat the oldest first. Depth beats variety.
2. Ragweed, classroom colds, and hot afternoons
Classrooms are full again and the first cold waves are moving through households. Ragweed peaks this month and feels the same at the start. Afternoons still run hot across the South while nights turn sharp up north. Build a sick shelf now: thermometer, fever reducer, electrolyte packets, tissues, canned soup. Ask your pharmacy about early refills while the month is calm. After flooding, check your county for water notices before drinking tap water.
The Drill
One errand, paper only, today
Today, run one familiar errand using a paper map alone. Put your phone in the glovebox, screen down. Pick the grocery store or a relative’s house two or three miles out. Note every turn where you hesitated and mark it in pencil on the map. Then fold the map and leave it in the vehicle, not on the kitchen counter where it does you no good.
Ready beats lucky.
- Survival Rise
P.S. Forward this to the person in your family who still thinks the phone will always have a signal.