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Letter Re: A Commercial Fueling Network (CFN) Card Lock Account as a Preparedness Measure

Sir:
I work for a truck company and came up with an idea that may be useful to others out there. We fill our trucks up with diesel at Commercial Fueling Network (CFN). We do this for a couple reasons such as it is more cost effective and low key. From a city survivalist point of view its a great location to acquire fuel in two situations. One would be the natural disaster scenario where one is trying to flee the city only to find that regular stations are out of fuel. At this point they could divert low key CFN locations and purchase fuel assuming that the power is working. The reason that this would be advantageous is that fuel is purchased via a card and only people with a CFN card can buy, there are no attendants.

The second second scenario would be in a TEOTWAWKI situation where you would desperately be seeking fuel and resort to siphoning from the underground tanks. To top it off CFN publishes a book with every CFN location, a small map and what types of fuel they have. You can pick these up at any local oil company (CFN member). With regards to obtaining a CFN card, I have no idea maybe there is another reader that has some knowledge of this. Great job with SurvivalBlog! Regards, - Echofourcharlie

JWR Replies: Many thanks for that great idea. You are the first SurvivalBlog reader to specifically mention getting a CFN card as a preparedness measure. You just earned yourself a Blinding Flash of the Obvious (BFO) Award. I'll be mailing you a complimentary autographed copy of my novel "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse".

I presume CFN cards should be available to just about any one with "Inc." in their company name, although they might only serve folks with fleets of vehicles.

Echofourcharlie's letter underscores one recommendation that I've been making to my consulting clients for more than a decade: Every family should own at least one diesel vehicle with some cargo room. Whether it is a military surplus M1008 CUCV pickup or a battered old pre-turbo Mercedes station wagon doesn't matter. Just get something that can burn diesel fuel--or home heating oil. The day may come when gasoline will be unobtainable, but diesel or home heating oil is still available.

In addition to the station guide book that you mentioned, CFN also lists their station locations at this web site.

In my opinion, it would have to be absolute worst case grid-down situation with depopulation on the scale of the upcoming I Am Legend movie before I'd ever consider scavenging in the way that you described. But if this ever were necessary, the best way to accomplish it would be by using a 12 VDC fuel transfer pump, built according to specifications that I described in SurvivalBlog.

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