A 20 pound propane tank is 100 hours of low heat and one open window
Plus the neighbor list that beats a camera, and the October grocery squeeze nobody budgets for.
Issue #067 Sunday, October 25, 2026 SHTF Preparedness
A 20 pound propane tank will run a small indoor rated heater on low for close to 100 hours. It will also load a sealed bedroom with carbon monoxide long before the tank runs dry.
3 Skills
1. Pick the relative who lives 900 miles away
Pick a relative who lives a few states away. Local lines jam first, and the long call often walks right through. Everyone in the house memorizes that number and calls it to report where they are. Write the rest on paper: primary meeting spot, backup spot, one radio channel, and a check in time like 7 p.m. Tape a copy in every backpack and glove box.
2. The two houses you can see from your door
Call the two neighbors whose houses you can see from your door. Trade cell numbers tonight and actually test them. Then walk your perimeter after dark. Any door that opens without a key, any window with a loose latch, any bulb that is out gets fixed this weekend. A neighbor who answers at 2 a.m. does more than a camera that records a stranger leaving.
3. Warm the body first, the room second
Heat the person before the room. Base layer, hat, wool socks, and a sleeping bag on the couch beat a furnace you cannot run. Pick the smallest room with the fewest windows as your warm room. Charge every power bank to full tonight and keep one in the warm room. If you run a fuel burning heater indoors, follow the label, crack a window, and put a battery alarm in the same room.
2 Threats On The Radar
1. The furnace has been asleep since spring
The first real cold night of the month is when furnaces fire up after sitting idle all summer. That is also when cracked heat exchangers and clogged flues show themselves, and when repair shops stop answering fast. Run your heat for twenty minutes today while the weather is still mild. Swap the filter. Press the test button on every smoke and carbon monoxide alarm, and replace any alarm older than ten years.
2. Thin pantry, fat shopping season
October is when stores start stacking for the holidays. Flour, sugar, butter, canned pumpkin, and broth go thin in specific stores on specific weeks, and baking staples get harder to find as November closes in. The fix is boring. Add two extra of something you already eat to every trip, buy the store brand, and keep a small cash reserve at home for the week the card readers go down.
The Drill
Main breaker off for one hour, tonight
Tonight after dinner, flip the main breaker off and leave it off for one full hour. Start a timer. Do not open the freezer. Write down every problem as it happens: the flashlight with dead batteries, the door that will not latch in the dark, the well pump that takes your water with it. Flip it back on and fix the top three before next Sunday.
Ready beats lucky.
- Survival Rise
P.S. Forward this to the neighbor you just added to your phone, and tell them why.