The 7 Pillars Of Urban

Preparedness
Authored by Toby Cowern via The Organic Prepper blog,
The 7 Pillars of Urban Preparedness is an introductory course
that Selco and I teach. This is a foundational module that we
refer to often because so much is built from these seven
pillars. Selco and I created this framework to hang things in a
logical sequence.
When Selco and I first met we shared our teaching material.
After sifting through it all we found we had a massive volume
of material with very little structure. People were having to
process the information and somehow compartmentalize it in
their own minds. They could not keep up with what we were
teaching in the moment because they were still trying to sort
out the previous information. We realized we needed to build
structures for people to hang information on.
The preppersphere desperately needs that structure. As the
sphere expands, without these structures, the information
becomes more and more fragmented and people do not quite
know what to do with the information they are given. The 7
Pillars are strong foundational pillars designed to help them
with that and to help build resilience.
Please remember this crucial piece of advice:
These pillars are meant to be built together, incrementally, and
consistently so the main structure stays level. You don’t want to build one
pillar to its highest possible height when you haven’t yet started on the
other 6.

What are the 7 Pillars?

 Pillar One: Water
 Pillar Two: Shelter
 Pillar Three: Fire
 Pillar Four: Food
 Pillar Five: Signaling | Communication
 Pillar Six: Medical | Hygiene
 Pillar Seven: Personal Safety
Pillar One: Water
Water is absolutely vital. Most of us probably already know
that. However, what we see consistently is we struggle to
contextualize the absence of something. Particularly water.
Many people just can not fathom a world without freely
available water. Even though academically we know it is
possible there may be a time when we are without water, we
viscerally don’t feel it.
We tend to avoid prioritizing water and only make a token
effort. We think we can just go buy a couple of cases of
bottled water, put it in the corner and “Yay me. There’s my
water. Done.”
Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good start. But that is woefully
insufficient. Not only in terms of actual resource, but in
strategic mindset or proper planning for this preparation. We
must take into consideration reasonably foreseeable
problems. Is it reasonably foreseeable that there can be an
interruption to our water supply? Yes, and it happens daily
somewhere in the world. It doesn’t just mean the tap doesn’t
work. It could also be the water is contaminated.
If we fail to keep up our intake of water, we can experience
significant problems very fast. A lot of people in survival
training talk about the rule of threes: Three minutes without
oxygen, three days without water, three weeks without food.
Some even add in 3 hours without shelter, which is
environmentally related.
I want to challenge this because it gives a total false sense of
security.
Yes, you can go three days without water before long term
internal organ damage occurs. But, in just a few hours
 without water you will begin feeling the detrimental effects of
dehydration. Your mental processes will become
compromised. You may not be deadly dehydrated, but you
will start to make stumbling-bumbling bad decisions. So, you
may just die by making a stupid decision because of your
compromised mental state.
Please do NOT treat this with token effort. We must
understand how important water actually is.
Pillar One-Water: Actionable Point
The first block of this pillar is to have a water supply stored
and ready to go. You will need to calculate your household
water requirement. Ideally, you want to aim for a robust two-
week supply of water. This is something that’s way better to
overestimate than underestimate.
 Calculate two liters per person in your household, per day of water as a
minimum. This should come to a half gallon per person.
 Based on that number calculate your household requirement for one week
minimum, two weeks ideally.
Household requirements means the people that are present,
and the people that are possible. In the event of a crisis, is
someone going to be coming to you? You need to factor them
in and also factor in pets and livestock and animal effects.
The second block of this pillar addresses hygiene, whether
that be in terms of flushing toilets, washing clothes or
washing bodies. You want to have that buffer zone.
 Calculate five liters per person in your household, per day. This should be one
and a quarter gallons per person.
 Based on that number, calculate your household requirement for one week
minimum, two weeks ideally.
It is crucial that you look forward to the next stage. Perhaps
you will need to have enough water for longer term, or your
water may become compromised. You will want to factor in
your ability to collect, transport, treat and store water. You
need to think, “Where else could I go and get water from?
What can I collect it with? How do I get it from where it is,
back to me? How do I treat it to make it safe? How do I store
it?
If you have collected water in a container that has not been
treated, the container will become contaminated. You do not
want to put your safe, treated water back into an untreated
container. Make sure you have another container or system.
Pillar Two: Shelter
Thinking in terms of wilderness survival shelter, it would be:
what resources can be discovered or pulled from the
landscape to build a suitable structure to shelter against the
elements here? Urban preparedness is going to be different.
Fundamentally, your shelter needs to protect you from
environmental hazards. For me living here in Northern
Scandinavia, we go deep into extreme winter – double-digit
negative temperatures, consistently with heavy snowfall,
heavy winds. Heating and insulation of houses and whether
cladding and weatherproofing is a huge priority of
constructions here.
All of you are all over the globe and I don’t know what region
you live in or what weather you live through. But the common
thought here should be: is your shelter resilient to your
weather in general. Hopefully, your house deals with the
climate that you’re used to living in. (That would be
unfortunate if it weren’t.) And, also to the extremes of that
climate and any extreme weather events that could happen.
Environmental threat is not just about the weather, it is also
about the demographic you live in. Do you live in a densely
populated region or a sparsely populated region? More
densely populated areas have more people. More people
means there will be more competition for resources. It can
also mean the area can become more prone to violence.
Density does not just refer to people. You have to consider animals.
It’s been interesting to look at areas that have gone into
lockdown due to the pandemic. The ecosystem has been
interrupted because many animals were used to feeding off
human garbage. (Dumpsters at the back of restaurants type
stuff.) Animals are becoming increasingly out of control and
problematic because those normal food resources aren’t
there. Animals associate people with food and will take risks
to get closer to people to access that resource. Your shelter
needs to protect you from animals as well.
Pillar Two-Shelter: Actionable Point
Think about layout in terms of actual use vs intended use vs
potential use. A shelter needs to function normally and it
needs to function in extremes. Not only during environmental
threat, but also the additional burden of more people.
For example: you may live on your own, or you may live with
a partner and have a small family. What if, out of necessity,
additional family members must be included. How will your
shelter now cope with that? Do you have enough beds and
bedding? Do you have enough cutlery and crockery if you
need to house and feed more people? Or, you may have a
categorical red line of no one’s ever going to come into my
property, let alone stay on, or to stay here for a longer period
of time.
Many of us are used to simply walking in through the front
door or the back door. But let’s just put it in pandemic
context. If an airlock is needed to create a decontamination
route into the premise, how will you re-roll to do that? How
am I changing? Are you going into a garage, stripping down,
cleaning and putting on fresh clothes? What are you options
for entering the residence then?
That is viral or pandemic specific, but there can be other
issues.
For example, you are out dealing with extreme weather
events getting really wet, muddy, dirty and stinky. That same
sort of decontamination process needs to be factored in. How
do we transition from outside to inside safely and securely?
How do we transition from inside to outside in the reverse
manner?
The big one is: what if the infrastructure gets compromised?
What if the water stops running? What if the electricity stops
working? If there is a gas supply, what if it runs out or it’s
switched off? What are the alternatives now to keep the
shelter functioning? And what’s the longevity of those? If
you’ve got a small, backup gas cylinder, how long does that
work in your heating system?
Remember this: one to two weeks minimum is a healthy
caution. You should be thinking about if the need to heat,
cool, ventilate and light your shelter for one to two weeks
MINIMUM. This is not to say don’t plan for longer, if you want
to plan for one month, three months or six months, that’s
perfectly fine.
Pillar Three: Fire
This pillar includes alternative heating and cooking means as
well as fire protection and fire suppression.
If electricity is off, if the stove doesn’t work, if the heating is
shut off, what do you have as an off grid alternative for that?
Do you have a camping stove, a little gas cooker or the ability
to improvise and adapt for what is suitable for your
environment?
As the system starts to get squeezed and the pressure begins
to show, emergency services are potentially re-prioritized.
You will then need to be your own fire department, your own
nursery, your own school, your own pharmacy, your own
hospital. All of that infrastructure and resource you’re used to
accessing may not be available to you for some time. As the
situation gets more serious you must increasingly become risk
aware and prepared to manage risk.
Pillar Three-Fire: Actionable Point
Possible scenario: The electricity has gone out. You are now
using candles for lighting, a camp stove or gas cooker to cook
on. This is increasing the fire hazards in the home. At the
same time there is going to be significantly delayed response,
or no response, from emergency services.
Make sure you have smoke alarms in place, fire blankets and
accessible fire extinguishers. Aside from very small children,
everyone needs to know where these things are and how to
use them. This is very important. If you are not there in that
moment, whoever is there must know how to adequately
suppress a fire before it gets out of control.
Another thing to take into consideration is what your
residence is made of. If you are living in a brick apartment,
great. However, if you live in a wood house insulated with
sawdust it will they go up in flames like a tinderbox.
Pillar Four: Food
We are terrible creatures of habit.
We buy the food we are used to buying with no regard to
practicality. Especially if we eat fresh every day. Two weeks of
fresh produce in your fridge is all going to by mushy and
rotting within three days. When we break out of our habits
because of panicked herd mentality we find that we have
stocked up on all the wrong things.
To those of you who may have already gone out and bought
200 kilos, 450 pounds of pasta: what are you gonna do with
it? After eating that for four meals straight, you are going to
be done. Cooking and cleanup are fine if everything is running
perfectly. But what if the grid is compromised?
Shelf Stable and long-term food do not require any sort of
special storage considerations, refrigeration, freezing or
particular temperature. You need to ask yourself: do I have
the means for preparation? Is this something I can tolerate?
Let me let you in on a little secret: No One Like MRE’s. They
are a necessary evil with a few rations that are okay. But that
is as good as you’re going to get.
You have to try and keep familiar routines as much as you
possibly can. Mealtime cannot be a war-zone. Throwing away
a weeks’ worth of food is not survivable.
Pillar Four-Food: Actionable Point
While the stores are still open and online ordering is available,
get what you can. Try to maintain a well-rounded diet. Buying
a million of one thing is not going to work. To the best of your
ability add variety. In my family we are fortunate to be able
to create Indian food. With four base ingredients and 10
different spices we can have 30 different meals.
Don’t forget the snacks, it’s going to be a stressful time.
Comfort snacking can bring a profound sense of relief. Just
don’t buy 400 bags of chips and nothing with any substance.
The big thing to factor in is ease of preparation. Whatever you
buy, just imagine if you’re limited on water or the gas or
electricity is off. How easy is it to prepare? Things that require
little or no preparation should be very, very high on your list.
Pillar Five: Signaling | Communication
Signaling and Communication are two complementary parts of
Pillar 5. However, they have different meanings. Signaling
relates to the devices or hardware used. Communication
relates to the effectiveness and our own level of competency
with the tools or platforms we intend to use.
Typically many of us get tripped up by only thinking of the
gadgets and hardware. Just having walkie-talkies with
batteries in them is not enough. Effective communication
requires the competence and understanding of the correct use
of that equipment, and the actual means to communicate
your message unambiguously and with clarity to the other
party or parties.
Pillar Five-Signaling | Communication: Actionable Point
Your aim here is to give yourself as many options as you can
while also being effective, clear, and concise.
 Ask yourself the following:
 How many people am I dealing with?
 What would be the best form of communication under the current situation?
 How far do I need my communications to travel?
 What kind of signals can I use to convey the messages quicker?
Here are examples of what you can use and how for effective
communication.
PHONES: Set up a “Family Crisis Group on your phones.
Instead of having to send the same message to 10 different
people 10 different ways, you can put it all in one chat. This
way everyone gets information at the same time and anybody
can reply on the same thread and update.
PEN AND PAPER: Think a little more traditional. Not everything
has to be done on a cell phone or computer. Physically write
out lists, notes, whatever is necessary. This could come in
handy if, let’s say, you have someone quarantined in your
home. Passing notes to them on their food trays could be very
beneficial. The quarantined person could then respond in the
same manner when the food tray is returned.
WHITEBOARD: One way to transcend communication barriers
is the use of a whiteboard. You should be able to pick up a
few whiteboard packs, that include the markers and erasers,
inexpensively. Having the ability to write notes and even
communicate through glass if someone has self-isolated
behind triple glazed glass and you’re on the other side is
hugely beneficial.
WALKIE TALKIES: You could also consider ham radios, but for
now, let’s stick to the more basic alternatives. Walkie talkies
are great to have, especially if your network coverage is
spotty or you are in a black spot. I used mine extensively
when the kids were smaller. When I would go out to do
things, the kids would stay in the house. Having the ability to
check in on them and they could respond made them not so
nervous.
You have to be broad in your approach to this one. Don’t
narrow yourself down to simply choosing the devices or
hardware.
Pillar Six: Medical | Hygiene
Medical and hygiene is another double-barreled pillar. Medical
is effectively the reactive side of this pillar. For example,
people have gotten injured or I’ve been hurt, and I need to
have the equipment, tools, means, and knowledge to treat,
triage, prioritize and deal effectively with those injuries. Not
only in the short term, but potentially in the long term.
Hygiene is the preventative side of things. As the grid softens,
or potentially goes down, hygiene and sanitation routines are
easily compromised. If the toilets aren’t flushing, if the water
is not running to wash your hands it becomes easy to
overlook those habitual routines. Lack of sanitation, lack of
good hygiene practice, is probably going to damage more
people than a gunshot wound.
Often, we focus on the tactical, the cool side of medicine,
neglecting the basics. If we don’t have the means and the
ability to manage our bodily functions and waste immediately
and effectively in the short term or long term, that’s far more
likely to cause problems faster than some of the other stuff.
Pillar 6-Medical/Hygiene: Actionable Point
Begin by looking at your ability to improvise and adapt: For instance,
if you don’t have a specific piece of medical gear, dressings,
or bandages, what can be used to improvise and adapt? What
is the critical equipment or supplies that just cannot be
substituted? Bottled oxygen is a great example: if you’ve got
somebody that needs supplementary oxygen, there’s almost
no way to effectively substitute that. You will also have to
analyze what parts are needed for critical equipment. You
might have the bottle oxygen, but if you don’t have the tube,
adapters, and connectors then you’ve got yourself a big
problem. Also very important is the mechanical knowledge
needed to repair any of the equipment you may have.
 Medicines or pharmaceuticals: You need to know what is critical
and is there a specific way of administering it. If it is tablet
form that is relatively easy. But you need to know whether
you’ve got to mix it in a vial, or it needs to be in a
suspension, or requires a certain measurement or must be
delivered using a specific method. And, you need to know
how to do all those things and have the backup supplies
necessary to do so.
Alternatives for sewage and waste: Almost a third of the planet
does not use toilet roll at all. There are alternatives. When I
was in the stores a few days ago all the toilet roll was sold
out. But there were wet wipes, napkins, and kitchen rolls. You
do not need a toilet roll to wipe your ass.
*Common knowledge: Do NOT flush wet wipes. They will clog
your drains.
If the toilet won’t flush, but you’ve got plenty of greywater
accessible you just pour a bucket in that toilet and that create
the flushing action. Most modern toilets are designed as a
gravity-fed system. If your toilet entirely stopped working, do
you have alternatives to that? Get some heavy-duty trash
bags to line the toilet with and collect the physical waste.
Make sure you have a suppressor to top it off with, like cat
litter. Tie it off and dispose of it safely.
At the very least, have a well-stocked first aid kit:
 Address any medication concerns for everyone. If you’re on routine
medication, you need to get as many of those as possible. Talk to your
healthcare provider about accessing that.
 If you or anyone else has allergies: at least two to three months of allergy
medication.
 Think about your non-medical needs: this can be things such as mosquitoes.
They may not be a problem just yet, but if you are in an area where they will
be, make sure you have supplies needed for those things now.
 Tummy issues? Diarrhea? Cough? Cold? Irritated Eyes? Get the over the
counter medications for those NOW. No need to stockpile. Just get ahead of
the curve.
Pillar Seven: Personal Safety
Originally in the Seven Pillars model, the seventh pillar was
self-defense. We have added to that and expanded into
Personal Safety. Self-defense is crucial in that you need to
know how to physically protect yourself in an attack. We have
expanded this pillar to include minimizing the risk of any
environmental factors that you may come into consideration
with.
PPE definitely forms a part of this pillar. PPE includes gloves,
masks (can be disposable or long lasting), safety glasses,
defenders, specialty clothing, protective footwear, cold
weather gear. Looking back on the courses from one to five
years ago talking about the need for PPE people put in the
token effort. They would have a box of 5 or 10 masks thinking
they would not need more. Now, we have a pandemic waking
us up to the fact that we can go through a large amount of
disposable PPE in a very short period of time. General
preparedness or true preparedness is all about that bigger
picture perspective, not fixating on one thing.
Another thing to consider is your general way of dressing. You
want to think about not standing out in environment you’re
in. Just walking or driving through and not really getting
noticed or having attention drawn to yourself is highly
desirable.
Pillar Seven-Personal Safety: Actionable Point
Mindset: If you know there is a bad situation going down, don’t
be there. That is as safe as you can be. For whatever reason,
many people struggle with the “curiosity killed the cat: type
thing. They just can’t help but head towards trouble just to
see what’s going on. Don’t do it. The goal here is to stay alive
and uninjured and as functional as possible. Avoiding trouble
is a massive leap in the right direction toward that goal.
Physical purchases: you may choose to invest in tools or
armaments for your personal safety. (We massively endorse
this.) You also need the confidence and competence in using
those tools. One example: firearms. Let’s say you have made
 the decision to own or carry firearms, make sure you put in
the range training time and practice time. This ensures you
will be confident and competent in the use of that weapons
platform in the manner you mean to deploy it.
Training: The training element is crucial. Don’t get me wrong,
stacking four persons deep on a door SWAT style with live fire
is great fun, I love it. I do that kind of training. That is not
how I plan to get my family out of my home in the instance of
a home invasion. Tactically it’s completely wrong. Okay, it’s
chalk and cheese trying to take that law enforcement or
military application over to the civilian sphere. Make sure your
training is contextual, and contextualized.
Individual Risk Analysis:
 What conditions will I be exposed to?
 How can I come to harm?
 How can I avoid or mitigate the risk of that harm?
*These questions pertain to your individual clothing,
equipment, and tool selections as well. You need to know
what harm may come from having, not having, use, or
improper use of these items.
Build a Roof of Resilience
The Seven Pillars has stood the test of time and is more
relevant and needed now than ever, in our opinion. Think of it
like this: we want to build a roof of resilience, and resilience is
what we want to build. Preparedness is just part of
resilience. You want that roof to sit on strong foundational pillars…The
Seven Pillars are designed to be those foundational pillars.