I had been using the PACE system
for years, I just didn’t know that is
what it was called, or that it even had a formal name. I first read about the
PACE acronym over on the
Viking Preparedness site, in a post by Joe. Growing up we joked
that the system
was called
one’s good, two’s better, and three is about right. It is the same
spirit of "two is one and one is none" that the PACE system stresses.
PACE stands for Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency. It is a good
solid way to break down your preps to make sure that your survivability is high.
It
doesn’t have to be a long hard plan, it can be very simple. Ask yourself
the question for each major category of survival.
Water
What is your primary source of drinking water? If you are like most of us you
turn on the faucet. Okay, your primary source is covered. Most likely all of
us
have the primary items covered by our “normal” living. You throw
a light switch for lights, turn up the furnace for heat, and open the fridge
for food. We live with our primary supply system.
The first level of survivability is at the Alternate level. When the power goes
out-what next? For some it is 12 volt back up, others light candles, and still
others fire up the Coleman lanterns. The totally unprepared sit in the dark and
grumble. So what do you do when the power goes out and you can’t draw water
from the system?
I can tell you my plan. I had to use it about a year ago when I still lived in
town and the city put a No Drinking of Water notice on our block. I got the sealed
water cooler bottles I had stored and opened one of them for drinking and cooking.
The bottles cost under $4 each and hold 5 gallons of pure drinking water. There
is no chemicals added and they store well. I checked with the dealer and found
out that if I buy the natural water, same price, it will store well over five
years as long as it is kept in a cool and dark place. They said it might store
forever
but they couldn’t tell me that. I keep four of them stored as my Alternate
plan for water as well as several camping jugs, one gallon jugs and a couple
cases of bottled water.
If we go into a long term situation and I run out of my stored water I have to
fall back to my Contingency plan. I have a filter system that will allow me to
make lots of drinking water before I have to change the filter. Either rain water
or water from a point well can be cleaned and ready as needed. Another layer
of my contingency plan is water tabs to us as well.
My emergency water will come from the stream a quarter mile to the west of my
farm. I have a Katadyn filter to use to clear it and make it drinkable. We can
also boil water to clean it. I can draw the water from my hot water tank if needed.
We also have bleach. Our water back ups are more than just [three] PACE levels
because water is so important. Besides, it is not that hard to develop a few
good purification
methods for water.
Heat
Without power we lose the furnace and our heat. We heat with propane so I can
drop into the Alternate plan easily and turn on the fire place and the stove
to heat our “cocoon” room. If needed, we can live in our kitchen/living
room for days on end. While not really part of our PACE plan, it is good to know
that we can heat a smaller area and stay comfortable during cold weather. Our
contingency plan is to bring in the kerosene heater out of the barn and use it
to heat the cocoon room. If we are in a long term grid down situation I can pull
the fireplace insert and convert it to a wood burning fireplace in a matter of
minutes. We consider that our emergency plan.
Food
I will not speak much about food because if you have read any of the survival
blogs you know that you need to store food, canned and packaged, grow a garden,
store grains, harvest wild edibles, and plan on hunting and trapping.
Shelter
I am very fortunate to live at my retreat. I moved back to the family farm less
than a year ago. My wife and I had already stored a large amount of our preps
in the barn and had planned to bug out to here even if the house was not completed.
Our plan was to make as much of the house livable as possible if TSHTF. If that
was not possible for us than we would build living quarters in the barn. Unable
to do that we would put up a tent and camp out. Now that the house is complete
and we are living in it we have revamped out plans to stay in the house and moved
the living in the barn to our emergency plan.
Life in General
The PACE system is easy to understand and follow, and gets easier as you do more
of it. Pick any aspect of survival you want and work out a PACE plan. Say you
want to have weapons in your plan. Okay, primary will be your MBR. Your alternate
might be your shotgun or bow and arrow. Contingency, sling shot. Emergency, Atlatl
and spear.
Back ups to the back ups are a necessary part of life. You already use them and
probably never thought about them as an emergency plan. If your car dies what
do you do, call a friend for a ride, take the bus or ride a bike? More than likely
you are already PACE-ing yourself. Keep that mindset toward the forefront of
your thoughts and your prepping should get easier and deeper. - Wolverine