“It is far safer not to get caught out in a thunderstorm than to try to protect yourself once the storm has started!”

Psychological responses to emergencies follow a pattern…only 10 to 15 percent of any group involved in any emergency will react appropriately. Another 10 to 15 percent will behave totally inappropriately and the remaining 70 to 80 percent will need to be told what to do. The most common reactions at the onset of an emergency are disbelief and denial.

Always take lots of water along, and never depend on being able to find it! But it’s a really good idea to know where to look for water in the event of an emergency. Here are some desert water tips from survival expert Peter Kummerfeldt

In priority order, after shelter and the need to defend your body temperature, preventing dehydration is the survivor’s next most important necessity.

The best firestarting system can also be the cheapest and the materials are the easy to find at any drug or grocery store.

Most of us can’t take all the survival field classes and seminars we’d like to, and only a fool would create a real emergency to see how he might react! But these five books will help you develop the most important part of any wilderness survival kit: the survival mindset!

Author Leah Waarvik is a search-and-rescue professional who works as part of a canine team to find missing people in the wilderness. She wrote “I Sit and Stay” after hearing stories of children who were lost and unprepared. The book is intended to initiate a discussion between adults and children about the main teaching points. The title says it all: Teach your lost children to stay in one place and await rescue

by Leon Pantenburg The rattle of musketry came from over the hill, and in a few minutes, our pickets were driven back. The order came to form ranks, so I drained my canteen and wished for more water. It was late in the afternoon of the Civil War re-enactment battle of Champion Hill, near Vicksburg, [...]

Stay or go? A fundamental precept of urban and wilderness survival is that during or after an emergency and/or survival situation, you should stay put so rescuers can find you. But what happens if that isn’t a possibility?

Generally speaking, if you haven’t learned survival skills by the time you need them, you won’t have time to learn! But this emergency management list from survival expert Peter Kummerfeldt gives you a step-by-step progression of what to do in an urban or wilderness survival situation from the instant you realize you are in trouble.