80: Zoe, The Leftist Prepper
There is no bigger struggle than surviving a post-disaster scenario or perhaps the anxiety we feel about an impending disaster. Joining me today is Zoe Higgins, The Leftist Prepper, from TikTok. You’ll learn what it means to be a prepper, how and why Zoe became a prepper, why the “disaster myth” of movies is not reality, and how to keep your family safe in a disastrous event.
Show Highlights:
● What it means to be a prepper—and how it started for Zoe in 2017
● The difference between doomsday preppers and realistic preppers
● What leftist prepping is all about
● Zoe’s Hurricane Ida experience in 2021, and how communities came together
● What the “disaster myth” is—and why it isn’t true
● How fundamental Christian narratives play into alt-right prepper views
● How doomsday preppers incorporate racism, ableism, and fat shaming into their rhetoric
● Where to start in becoming a prepper
● What to know about prepping with canned food, freeze-dried food, and stored water
● Why a hand-crank emergency radio is a necessity
● How to prep for extreme temperatures in a disaster scenario
● What to think about in your 72-hour kit beyond food and water: niche gadgets, first aid/medical supplies, maps, chargers, batteries, and printed information
● What to consider for a go-bag, bug-out bag, etc.
● Safety issues to think about in a disaster scenario
● Zoe’s takeaway thoughts about anxiety and prepping
Resources and Links:
Connect with Zoe: TikTok and How People Behave After Disasters information sheet
Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.
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KC 0:00
Okay Hello you sentient balls of stardust. This is struggle care. I'm your host, Casey Davis. And there is no bigger struggle than the struggle we experience post disaster, and perhaps the struggle that we experience before an impending disaster when we feel anxious. And so today I want to talk to Zoey Higgins, who is the person behind the tech talk the leftist prepper. And I want to talk about emergency preparedness. I want to talk about what it means to be a leftist. prepper that we thank you so much for being here.
Zoe Higgins 0:34
Yeah, thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I love your podcast so much.
KC 0:38
So let's start with this. What is prepping? Because I did occurs to me that somebody might go well, what does that mean to be a prepper?
Zoe Higgins 0:45
Right? So prepping when I talk about prepping and I just use the term prepping. And I'm referring to emergency preparedness. So preparing for power outages, job loss. For me, I live in New Orleans, so I prepare for hurricanes, extreme weather events, that sort of thing. So prepping is talking about the act of being prepared for such events
KC 1:06
and what got you into prepping?
Zoe Higgins 1:08
I moved to New Orleans in 2017. And prepping is essentially part of your welcome gift. When you move to New Orleans. They say welcome to the City get a 72 hour kit because hurricanes happen. And so I started off very small. I had a tiny little Tupperware box with some candles and some Chef Boyardee. And that is where I started.
KC 1:30
So I want to sort of start by you know, I've been following you for a while I myself am a bit of a prepper. And I came to it the same way that you did. I moved to Houston, Texas, the year after Hurricane Harvey and I had a baby a five month old baby that was on formula. And my greatest fear was what if we are in a hurricane and we don't have access to clean water, my baby can't eat. And so I started looking for I asked some people online, you know, okay, how do I prepare for a hurricane? How do I make sure and I started looking online or like resources and other people that were talking about prepping and people ask you all the time, you know, why do you have to say leftist? prepper? Why do you make it political? And I can say that, when I first started to look into prepping and like googling the word prepping? I understand completely why you had to specify leftists?
Zoe Higgins 2:18
Yes, the online community up until recently was the online community of preppers was mostly 99%. All right, people and their politics, were stepping stuff with prepping. And I quickly realized because I did the same thing. When I moved to New Orleans and gotten to prepping I'm online, I'm finding communities and I immediately felt left out and like I didn't belong there. Because we were also prepping for very different things. A lot of alt right preppers are also Doomsday Preppers and they are prepping for apocalyptic scenarios that I am not I am a realistic prepper. And I stay grounded in reality as much as I can. And yeah, I felt very distanced from those communities. And so I've just made a tick tock one day showing like my little prep gear, my fun stuff. And I was shocked. I got tons of views and people being like, be like, I'm not a doomsday prepper like, I don't why is this on my free page? And I'm like, Well, I'm not either. And within that I found this like awesome community of other leftists who are preppers
KC 3:22
Yeah, when I do I occasionally do videos and long form short form about prepping for disaster. And a comment that I get a lot is that's not going to help you if you know the we get attacked, or you know, like Apocalypse happens. And I always respond with like, hey, hot take, I'm not trying to survive the apocalypse. I don't know that I want to survive nuclear fallout,
Zoe Higgins 3:43
though. Like, I've just tried to survive like a three day power outage, you know, basic stuff. And it's one of those things where prepping is also about staying comfortable during those experiences, you know, like, You're unlikely the average person is unlikely to totally die during a three day power outage. But what can we do to be comfortable during that time? Yeah.
KC 4:03
And for me, I know coming in after Harvey, I kind of got like an extreme start. So I asked people online like, hey, like, what should I do to prepare? And I think had I asked any other year, I would have gotten a very different response. Absolutely. The whole of Houston was very much traumatized by Harvey if you don't know the story of hurricane Harvey, part of the reason it was so much more of a disaster than expected, like we expected a hurricane. We expected, you know, this hurricane, but there were some last minute weather shifts that made the hurricane stall over Houston.
Zoe Higgins 4:38
I remember that I was watching the news very carefully. And I remember that it just stopped and
KC 4:44
that was what we weren't prepared. And so everybody that was prepared for these three day power outage all the sudden was going three weeks and the daily had a great episode about a couple who's you know, his wife had just had surgery and the water is rising in their home. And he continues to call and say I need rescue. I need rescue, but they were just overwhelmed. Like the city services were overwhelmed. And so when people gave me their list, it didn't stop it like, Oh, you just need to send it to our kid. Just be reasonable. It was like, right, you're gonna get a boat. Like literally everyone was like, if I had to do it again, I would have a boat, like I would have a blow up raft. At the minimum, I would have an air mattress, because if I have to walk through floodwaters, and I have children, or I have pets, or I want to keep something dry, I want to be able to pull something behind. Yes. And so it was like, whoa, okay, so it was another one was someone saying, Get glowsticks? Because in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, people started going door to door to get supplies. And I'm not talking about like marauders right not like I'm coming in, you know, Walking Dead style with bad intentions to like start my own government and rob you. This was simply people going to empty homes, because okay, I don't have any more batteries, I don't have any more food, there's nobody in this home, I'm gonna go in and get some canned goods. And she said, we would hang the glow sticks in our windows to tell people someone is living here. Because without lights, you can't tell who's living there who's not. And so it was just an interesting, it was an interesting thing you've talked before about part of the reason why you specify leftist, is this idea that it's like an individual preparedness versus a community preparedness. So talk to me about how you got into prepping like your personal story about like, you know, starting with this little kit, and then kind of looking around at your community. So
Zoe Higgins 6:30
I started with my little kit, and I quickly was looking at my friends and realizing very few of them were prepared. And to this day, none of them are as prepared as I am. But it is my special interest. It is my hobby at this point. And for me, I've evolved to the point where I believe leftist prepping is about centering community building efforts at the core of all disaster preparedness efforts. And we can look at studies that show how communities weather after storms and how they measure the resilience of the community. And part of that is how engaged the community is with one another. So I started being on like my local groups talking about prepping, seeing if people are interested. And everybody's like, Well, yeah, we prep live because it's New Orleans, but I now center my efforts on being community minded. And one reason is because we got hurricane Ida in 2021. And hurricane Ida, it hit us but it took a last minute turn. So we were going to get more than expected and intensified as hurricanes often do, like the last few hours. And we were going to stay we kept planning on staying. But we had a really elderly dog at the time who could not deal with you know the temperatures after Hurricane that's your real danger. Along with floodwaters is that intense heat. So we decided noon to evacuate, we left at 1am. And in that time I got my family together, I secured our storm shutters, all of that and we evacuated to my family in Tennessee. And I have never felt more anxiety Casey than when I was watching the weather channel as they're showing it to descending on the city. And I had friends who stayed and they said it was the most terrifying experience of their life, just hours of hearing everything knocking against your walls and windows and wondering if it's going to sustain. So the day after the hurricane, I'm on Facebook and I'm in a mutual aid group for New Orleans and I see so many people posting that they're out of batteries already. They're out of diapers, they're almost out of formula and all of the Walmart's all the stores in New Orleans are either closed or completely sold out of everything. There is nothing in South Louisiana as far as resources and the National Guard was coming in, but people had other needs than what the National Guard was provided. So I realized the Walmart's near me and Tennessee are fully staffed. So I posted the mutual aid and I said, I'm coming down tomorrow, let me know what people need. The amount of comments I was not prepared for. I got about like 50 comments, probably more of people being like we urgently need batteries, we have no way to stay cool. I'm staying in my elderly mother, people reaching out for disabled family who were stuck. And so I posted on my little Instagram at the time, and I was not making content really at the time. So this was I didn't really have a platform yet. And I said my husband and I are going to be able to give you know a few $100 to these efforts. But if you feel that to donate, we're going to Walmart tonight within a few hours people had sent me over $1,000 And so I was able to get so many supplies to really meet the needs of 15 different families we were able to fully stocked with non perishable food batteries, cooling fans, and then countless other families that just needed like rabbit food, right things like that. And that experience changed forever how I looked at prepping that it was about the community coming together. and surviving together.
KC 10:01
You know what's interesting about that is that so I live in a neighborhood we just moved last year. And this last Halloween, we lost power, just like a weird freak thing with the power grid, one of the Transformers blew. And so we're like, everyone's kind of like, okay, we're going to trick or treat, we're not Trick or treat. Well, a lot of people in my neighborhood have online generators. So like generators that they have on their house to power and not all of them. But like a good I mean, between a third and a half problem. So we're going around with trick or treating, and we kind of roll up to the house. Basically, the houses that have generators are still trick or treating, right, handing out candy. And so I struck up a conversation with someone about like, gosh, I've really got to get a generator and are and for anyone who doesn't know, like, I hear this a lot online. Like, why don't everyone just gonna generate generators are so expensive? They're like, $16,000, right? Or, I mean, it's bizarre how expensive they are. So I'm striking up this conversation. And she brings up that the last time there was a freeze, we had a really, really bad freeze in I think, 2021 in Texas. And she tells me about so wonderful to have a generator because they became this hub of the community. They said, You know, they set up a like, for lack of a better term, like a soup kitchen, a food place at the elementary school, but they quickly ran out of room she's like, so we became the second place. My neighbors came over, we cooked from sunup to sundown, and handed out food to our neighbors. We had people in our beds, on our couches, laying on our floors. I mean, we maxed it out, we took care of this neighborhood, I love that so much, is I'm kind of getting emotional, because, you know, she was like, I mean, that's what it's about. And that's what happened. And I think what's so interesting is the amount of people who talk about like, what happens after a disaster, you know, some people get on to you, and they even get on to me like, why would you make videos about prepping? Now everybody knows what you have. And they'll say the first thing that's going to happen at a disaster, especially because we're women is that somebody's going to come and take off your stuff. And people especially as we move farther, right? Have this idea, this narrative that after a disaster, it's going to dissolve into Lord of the Flies, and we'll all be on our own. And you have to self sustain. And I'm curious, like how you handle those types of comments.
Zoe Higgins 12:13
I went down a deep rabbit hole. But I started getting a lot of those comments last year. And I did a lot of reading and a lot of research. And I actually just made a video about this other day. But that is feeding into what is known by scholars as the disaster myth, the disaster myth being there's this idea that communities dissolve into crime, chaos, there's no humanity, there is just survival and they'll stab you if you get in the way. That kind of idea. It's a disaster myth. It's not true. There's all these studies that show what actually happens in communities in rural communities, cities doesn't matter. And it also is extends the bounds of the US this happens around the world that communities come together and act extremely pro socially, after a disaster. Very few people are acting selfishly, you will always find people even when the world is normal, being selfish. But that is by far not the majority of people after disaster. And also I love to debunk about the disaster myth because the disaster myth feeds into narratives that counteract the needs of survivors. And that that's we witnessed that with Hurricane Katrina with false media speculation about this rampant crime in the city like do these people deserve rescue? Because look what they're doing, they're ravaging themselves. And that ultimately hurts survivors, and it counteracts efforts to intervene and provide humanitarian aid.
KC 13:42
It also seems, I mean, not to mention the racial component there, certainly with Katrina, and somewhat with Harvey as well. But not to mention that there's also this like, backwards like self fulfilling prophecy, which is like, yes, decent people can become desperate enough to be driven to kind of desperate measures, whether that be violence or manipulative or whatever. But again, that's driven by a life or death, desperation. And if a community was preparing in such a way that they were coming together and trying to take care of each other, even if not everybody had exactly what they needed. But there was this sense that we're trying as hard as we can to take care of each other. That seems like that would counteract any kind of like human temptation towards desperation, because I'm only going to resort to that kind of last ditch effort. If I feel like this is the only way to keep my family alive. But if families are coming together and demonstrating this idea that hey, we're gonna get through this for most people that's going to soothe that sort of last ditch fight or flight temptation.
Zoe Higgins 14:45
100% I couldn't agree more. And another reason why I distinguish myself as a leftist prepper because it is about that community and about supporting one another, whereas like, there's an alt right prepper in his basement with tons of food and zero company and no have interest in supporting their communities. And that's just that just isn't what it's about and the study is in the data shows that it is about community and supporting that as much as possible.
KC 15:15
One of the things that I find interesting when I look at the alt right movement with preppers, kind of those Doomsday Preppers those you know, I have this an my cache of guns so I can shoot anybody that tries to get my stuff. It's almost like there's this ideological fantasy that they're like, hoping they get to live out. You know what I mean? Like that. It's almost like there's this weird like, are you hoping for a Mad Max situation like there's this I don't know what it is or where it comes from, but it's
Zoe Higgins 15:42
bizarre. It's this rugged individualism that I think combined with gun love, because they are in my comments every single day, Casey telling me like, Oh, I'm gonna come to the blue state when the apocalypse hits and just take all your stuff. Yes. And like vague threats that like don't really mean anything. Like they aren't personally going to come after me. But like threats nonetheless. And it i It baffles me, I'm like, even if you don't like me, because I'm a leftist. And that's the only reason for not liking me fine. But like, don't you want to listen to like the data like, Don't you like care about the old granny next door who like may need help opening her cans, I just I don't get it. And it's really far from how I prepare for things,
KC 16:24
I would be so curious to deep dive into how like fundamentalist Christian revelation narratives play into outright preppers. This idea that, like, they're going to get vindicated as like the important ones and the right ones and like, and I'll tell you, as somebody who went to seminary, someone who studied under, frankly, conservative, biblical scholars, even conservative biblical scholars, none of them interpret revelation as like a rapture. Like none of them think the rapture is real. None of them think that rep. Oh, yeah, people really know what they're talking about, even in like very conservative places. That's true, actually, I would think so. Like they tell you revelation was not yes, it's a prophecy, but also it's highly symbolic. And most of them will tell you it was probably it probably has already happened, like not the Jesus coming back part and they do think that will happen. But they think that most of what's written there was describing the things that the person who wrote it was seeing around them and this idea that you're going to see the signs and it's all going to come crumbling and there's going to be this bit like most of them do not think that most of them do not believe in the rapture. And so it's interesting to me because it truly is this like little branch of like, misinterpreted Biblical stuff meets like it's like the worst of that religion, meats, like the worst of USA, individualism, culture, meats, like the worst of misogyny, and like toxic masculinity of like, I've been daydreaming all my years that I'm gonna have like a weird like John Wayne moment or something,
Zoe Higgins 17:58
literally, that's like how they talk the way they get so high up in my comments, or if somebody stitches me who has a conservative take on prepping the way they are, in my comments, essentially, just saying, it's going to be a free for all. I'm like, you want that to happen? Don't you look forward to that, which is wild? Well,
KC 18:17
I wonder how much of that is also powered by the racism that they experience when they watch Fox News say, oh, after Katrina, everybody was looting, right? That kind of feeds that. So, you know, we talked about like, I don't want to survive the apocalypse. You don't want to survive the apocalypse. Like I want to survive a three week, you know, disaster, basically. And you know, there's a lot of issues in prepping. I think we've touched on some of the individualism, some of the racism, a lot of ableism as well. I mean, people love to kind of laugh at the south when we talk about disasters, particularly anyone in like Texas when we talk about the freeze, so we just had a freeze. So we're talking on on Monday, January 22, right now and Texas just got done with their like three day freeze, and it was fine. There was literally not no, but what people don't appreciate is that we get kind of shit on for preparing a lot like, oh, you can't handle cold, but we also get shit on on the back end of the of a disaster if we didn't prepare. Absolutely. And people don't appreciate that, like we go through a hurricane a year, a tornado watch a year, a freeze a year and 90% of the time we're all fine, which is why when that one sneaks up on you that maybe it seems like it's gonna be fine. We also have a lot of problems with like local weather people overhyping things for ratings. And so you know, you do this sort of like prepare prepare, oh, nothing prepare, prepare, oh, nothing that you kind of get lacks, and then the big one hits, right, your 500 year flood or whatever. And we're all scrambling and I think that when people laugh at people over preparing, they don't realize that like it's not about over preparing, it's not about living in fear. It's about the fact that an eight year old die and 2021 in His manufactured home, he froze to death, right? It's really happened. And I think that every time someone laughs like it's so real and there will absolute whether it's cold or heat or lack of water or lack of power, like there are people that are on respirators, there are people on oxygen, there are people with mobility issues like there's this real sense of like, if you want to take care of the vulnerable in our community, we can't stop at thinking before we think about disasters.
Zoe Higgins 20:27
Oh, absolutely. And that's like another thing I have a big issue with doomsday prepper rhetoric is there's so much racism in there too. And there's so much ableism. And one of the things Doomsday Preppers are always telling me to do is to make sure I'm in great physical shape. So there's like fat phobia, too. They're like, You need to be prepared to run for miles. Like, I am not going to do that. And I don't
KC 20:49
that's so funny. Yeah. Oh, constantly. That's so weird and random. If anything, you need to be prepared to eat your own fat reserves for three weeks. Like, listen, my husband and I are obsessed with the show on Netflix called alone. Have you seen it? No, I have it. It's this contest where they take these people who are like outdoorsy, survivalists, and they give them a camera, oh, I have seen this do this. It's so it's our comfort show. It's so soothing for some reason. And they send them all out, like somewhere in Canada, or Alaska, or whatever. And they have to survive for 100 days. And they can only bring like 10 things with them to hunt their own food, find their own water, build their own shelter, and they'll drop out, you know, and whoever's left gets a bunch of money. But one of the things that happens because it's on like the seventh season, right, and they'll tell you how much weight people are losing because either like finding their own food is that now at this point, people will lose 3040 5060 pounds. This point, though, when people find out that they're selected for the show, they spend the rest of their time gaining weight, like they will purposefully put on 35 pounds. Isn't that interesting? Because they know the first thing that's going to happen, even if they're hunting every day, even if they're really good, survivalists. They're not going to have enough food. So I find that so funny that people love to be like, Oh, you're gonna need to be fit, you're gonna do me this. And so you know what else happens? This is so funny to me. The first ones to drop out are the big men who are like, Jack, because they're the ones that need like, 5000 calories to survive the day. Right?
Zoe Higgins 22:15
They need that. It's, I've have seen that show.
KC 22:18
And then this like, small woman who needs like, a couple 1000 calories,
Zoe Higgins 22:22
right? Oh, yeah, there was somebody was in my comments literally last week telling me like, well, the best thing you need to do me you is to get in really good shape. And I'm like, what scenario? Am I going to have to be running for miles again? Because I guarantee it's not during the hurricane. Like I guarantee you it's not during the power outage, because I know
KC 22:41
well, and people love to do that. Like why didn't you just evacuate because I was thinking like, the only time I would need to walk or run for miles is if I get stuck on the highway. And I have to get out of my car and start walking. And people don't realize that like we have this system here. And I'm sure you guys too. You'll see the signs as you go. There's only like a few major interstates out of Houston. When there's a hurricane, they backflow it meaning they turn the north and south sides both into northbound lanes going out. And still when that happens, it comes to a screeching halt. There was a lot of the mayor of Houston came under fire after Harvey of like why didn't he evacuate? Right? I remember that. And you know, because it was so bad. And yet there were a lot of experts that came in and said no, he did the right thing. Had he tried to evacuate more people would have died because so many people die trying to get out. So many people die being swept away on roads getting trapped in their cars and extreme weather. And so people don't appreciate that it's not as simple as just evacuate, especially if you have people that are medically complex or vulnerable, or you have your animals. It's crazy. So let's do that. That's exactly
Zoe Higgins 23:50
why we evacuated at 1am for hurricane Ida is because we knew everybody was waking up the next day and getting on the road and it still was filled with traffic. But yeah, and
KC 24:01
the classism aspect, like people don't realize that evacuating is a privilege and they don't realize how many people were still being told they had to come into work.
Zoe Higgins 24:10
Oh 100% You're at risk for losing income and evacuating costs hundreds of dollars if we're fortunate that we can drive it's still eight hours to Tennessee and have free lodging, but not everybody has us some families. They all live here. That's if you can get the gas to like if you can get the gas there's not enough gas in a gas in like all the gas stations in Houston to fill every single car if they all decided to go at once. And that's if the guy who operates the gas station didn't evacuate, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay,
KC 24:41
so let's shift a little bit and start talking about you know, if somebody wanted to start preparing, yes, like, where do we start? Because I know that when people watch my videos, I'm sure when they want your videos, the first thing they think is oh my god, this is 1000s of dollars of Oh yeah, like equipment and supplies. And so Where does someone start? If they want to start preparing do they have to spend tons and tons of money?
Zoe Higgins 25:04
I say you spend what you're comfortable with. I think first you start really small. You think about what are things that everybody can prepare for power outages, financial hardship, job loss and severe weather events in your area. What are you most like? Like I don't prep for blizzards. I'm in New Orleans. I prep for like a hard freeze that last two days, but I'm not going to prep for Blizzard I'm not going to spend money on that. So I say start super small start with it can be as simple as buying just one extra can of beans when you're at the grocery store, and then start doing your research. start deciding where you want to put your money. So I went from buying extra cans to be like, Okay, I need ways to cook this food. So I get my outdoor stove, camping stove, I mean, and fuel for that. And then I'm like, well, these cans of beans are like really gross. So what can I look into that I'm into freeze dried meals, which are actually like much more cost efficient than any food you get at the grocery store amazingly. And so I'm looking there. I also tell people to always try the food before you buy a bunch of it right 10 out of 10 recommended always have spices in your 72 Hour Kit. I think starting with a 72 hour kit is the key like That's step one. So
KC 26:21
what would I need to live for 72 hours if I ran out of food, water and power is that what it is?
Zoe Higgins 26:27
Yes, you need one gallon of water per person per day you need more if you have pets food, I prefer freeze dried food. And you also need if you go freeze dried, make sure you have enough water for cooking that food I've lost count how many gallons I have stored up I just have a lot and
KC 26:46
water is interesting too, because it's not as simple as throwing a 12 pack of plastic bottled water in your in your garage. And then forgetting about it for nine years, right like people don't realize that water does expire not because the water itself expires, but because the plastic begins to break down and leach into your water. So one of the things that we did when we moved to Houston was we bought hand water specifically, it's called emergency Canned Water, that they take all of the minerals out of the water, and then can it so that it is shelf stable for up to five years. And so we always have a bit of those off hand. The other thing is that we have these water containers called Aqua packs. And we have we have four of them. So one for each person. And they're great because they're these big blue containers. And anytime we know a freezer or a storm or something is coming like we just fill them up and stick them to the side. And then you know from there, like that's kind of like your basics. And then you can kind of move into the more niche stuff. If you have other things covered. So like then I got a LifeStraw then I got some iodine tablets, then I have that right like
Zoe Higgins 27:51
what I call the fun part of prepping is I love when I save up or get like a new little gadget to go with my prep. Also, people need a hand crank emergency radio there, you can get them on Amazon, you can get them in a lot of places. Usually you can charge them beforehand, but they also have that hand crank and make sure it has a channel called Web for WeatherBug. And that's the furthest right on the dial of any WeatherBug thing is your local station. And that's how we get weather updates during a power outage. And also what people don't realize is during a lot of these kinds of disasters is cellphone towers aren't super reliable and they do go down not every time but like they went down during Ida when we came back to the city we had very little way to communicate. One of
KC 28:38
the other things when we just going back to the water is that I like to have the canned water on hand and I like to have my Aqua packs because if there's a run on the grocery store, I can't rely on being able to go get bottled water from the grocery store. The other thing is so we talked about water we talked about food. What about extreme temperature like what would be the basics that you would want in a kit for extreme temperature.
Zoe Higgins 29:01
I know how to prepare for extreme heat New Orleans after Hurricane it can feel like 120 degrees outside and it's going to feel comparable inside because of that I recommend you always get ahead by staying really hydrated staying in the shade as much as possible. Battery Powered fans are great what's even better are those cooling towels they have like the froggy brand makes some thoughts of brands do and you don't have to use cold water to make them cool just plain water room temperature water makes them cool. The National Guard in New Orleans during Hurricane Ida gave out packs of ice as many as you wanted if pulled through. And so that was handy. We put a fan on top to suck the cold air into our room that was helpful but really not pushing yourself during high heat. Like there's no reason we need to go out and do a three mile walk for funsies. There is none of that also our water was still running. It wasn't safe for drinking but I was just constantly taking showers Just constantly just staying as cool as you can. Yeah, wet hair,
KC 30:03
Gillette hair, wet shirts. My sister lived in Boston when they had a heatwave, and she would sleep in a wet t shirt every night, which was helpful out. The other thing is now this is niche, but it's fun to have to know. So I spent a lot of time in Mexico, and then you could Tom Peninsula. And one of the things down there is that they are actually a culture that sleeps in hammocks quite a bit. And they have beds, but in the heat, they sleep in a hammock. And it's because it's so much cooler to sleep. Yeah, and not the hot not like a solid material. But like a kneaded hammock, if you just look up that type of hammock is really interesting. Now I'm in Texas, and so we prepare for the heat, but because of our electric grid not being very reliable. And because of our freezes, we also prepare for freezes. And the reason we do is because our infrastructure won't take care of us as well as it would somewhere else. So in our 72 Hour Kit, we have emergency blankets, and that's that, like they look like tin foil that you see kind of on movies and stuff. They're very cheap to buy. And you can throw those in there for very little money. I think that would be like a basics for a 72 hour kit, if you were to build off of that. Some other things that we have done, we have a couple of those like, you know, hot hands, yes,
Zoe Higgins 31:15
I actually just bought a massive pack of them. And they make blankets
KC 31:18
to like they're called lap warmers. And so I got that because I have little kids. And I thought, well, if I have to throw that on them, you know, I'm going to do that. Also, depending on what if you have backup power sources, that one of our sort of splurge buys for like 1000 bucks was called an eco flow battery. So this is kind of that midway between, we don't have a full generator, but we have this huge battery. And it has 99 hours of battery depending on what you use for it. And we got that because now we can run a fan. Now we can charge our phones. Now we can even run like I bought a cheap DVD player because I was like I can run a DVD on like a small screen, right? Yeah, I can run that I can also run a heating pad, or an electric blanket, I can run a space heater, although electric blankets going to I think take less. So those are some things we do for heat. The other thing we did getting beyond the 72 hour but just for whatever is that we bought a tent one the great multi-use Because if you go camping, you do whatever. But if you're truly going to go days and days and days and very, very, very cold temperature, getting all of your family and pets inside of a tent inside of a room of maximizes the body heat that stays inside that I've heard
Zoe Higgins 32:25
that before. I've heard people doing that during that Big Freeze y'all had a few years ago. And
KC 32:30
there's some other interesting things like people talk about like making little terracotta stoves over a pot or various things. Which brings us to a thing that I think a lot of people don't think about, which is information like in your 72 Hour Kit is information because like you said, you may not have access to the internet. So you're going to be sitting there because I also know because I went through a training once about that you can use a little bit of bleach to purify water. You can also put water in clear bottles and throw them up on your roof and let the sun do it over a certain amount of time. Oh, that's interesting. Here's the thing. Yeah, I'm not going to remember exactly what the time I'm not trying to mess up a dilution. Yeah, dilution poison your family. And we're so used to oh, just Google it, that all doesn't usually get there. Right. And so I think printing things off. And you know, sticking them in your little box is a huge part of it. So okay, we got food, water, we talked a little bit about power information, those little solar banks for a phone can be really helpful. Yes,
Zoe Higgins 33:29
I have so many of those little portable chargers, just whenever I have an extra 30 bucks, I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna get another one. I have so many and that I have a massive big battery, like the ecoflo and those are going to be like huge assets. So it's like require saving up little more than a few $100. But if you're able to and be able to save for that, I really recommend doing that. At the very least those handcrank emergency radios also have an output for charging a device and you
KC 33:59
can also charge your ego flow with your car. Oh, that's cool. There's a there's a cord to do that too. And then light right. Little lanterns and things like that. One thing that I didn't know for a long time is that you should not store your batteries inside of your equipment because yes, I learned that the hard way. I did too. I opened up a lantern and it was crumbled and eroding inside corroded
Zoe Higgins 34:21
Yes yes. And make sure if you're not using like a battery daddy I don't have a battery daddy. I know a lot of people do they're very cool but I have rent like plastic containers whole batteries. Make sure that the ends of the batteries are never touching because it'll drain batteries if they're touching just right so don't just throw them in a plastic bag.
KC 34:41
The other thing is to now so I think that's a pretty good basics kit let's talk about some of our like fun things our niche things so this is it I actually eventually bought a I have a gas turned off know about you guys but where we are you can't turn your gas off yourself like the the gas company has to come out to do it. But I have now the big key so that I can turn my own gas on Cool,
Zoe Higgins 35:00
that's really handy. That's I like that. I also have multiple manual can openers, because I have so much freeze dried food and number tin cans, which are the extra large ones. And can openers, I don't know, if you have experience they break like it's. So I have multiple manual can openers, I also want to stress for building any kind of prep kit, that redundancy is key, like you're not going to, it's really hard to like overdo it or prepping. And it's one of those things where you may feel like oh, we don't need more water. But then if you get that extra water, you're gonna feel really good that you have if you need it. So redundancy, oh, you
KC 35:40
know what we forgot first aid kit. Yes, first aid kit. And you can do a basic one, I eventually upgraded to a field kit, which means that I not only have first aid stuff, but I also have like if I need to build a tourniquet, you know, bleeding, stopping, things like that, and they can get expensive. So just starting small as is the important part. One of the other things that I have in my kit, which is not only for my family, but also community oriented building is that so one of my past life as an Evangelical, I have since deconstructed no longer consider myself an Evangelical, but I went to work for a church in Guatemala City, they had invited me down to work to help institute like a new ministry that our church had written, but that kind of cross cultural work is still considered missionary work in the church. And so they sent me to like missionary training. And it was like five weeks and most of it was about like having cultural humility. But there was a part of it that was about like some basic survival because a lot of people were going to places that weren't as like developed or resourced. And so they taught us how to like build composting toilets and things like that. But but one of the things that they gave us while we were there is this book called where there is no doctor, and it's basically a village medical handbook. It's written for the Layperson. It has lots of pictures and drawings. But this is everything from how to address a cut to what to do if someone gets infection, too. Literally, there's a chapter on how to birth Yes, and it also has some of the things that that we may not be as familiar with about like malaria and cholera and things that happen when you don't have as great water treatment. So there's that. The other thing is, and we don't have this but if you are going to get like really into like blurting is there is a company that you can actually purchase antibiotics from
Zoe Higgins 37:24
Oh, yeah, I've heard of that company. I haven't done it because it's expensive, and they have a short shelf life, but it's good to look into
KC 37:31
Yeah, so we don't have any for that reason. Let me ask you this. What's your most like the one piece of like supplies that you've really geeked out on that you think is so cool, probably.
Zoe Higgins 37:38
Oh, gosh, that's so hard. My portable battery by power smart. I'm obsessed with I love that I just have like 100 hours of battery when I need it. I did purchase two storage cabinets from Home Depot. And now in our back room, I have like a prep area like it used to always just be like under the bed or in closets, shoving it where I could. But now I have like a label maker and I've labeled everything I really like I know you asked for one but they're giving you multiple in my first aid. I have everything labeled for like what kind of illness I have like the tummy troubles bag and colds, respiratory illnesses. So everything is separate. It's the only thing in my house crazy organized. Also, one of my favorite things that people don't think of is to have board games or a deck of cards in your kid. Yep, it's easy to get bored.
KC 38:30
Coloring stuff for your kids that reminded me of one other thing. Oh,
Zoe Higgins 38:34
whistles, yes, whistles. FEMA lists that on their website for 72 hour kits that you should have a whistle. I think
KC 38:41
even the CDC, they're like you can go on to some of the USA government. I'm sure other governments have it too. They have a pretty good list of 72 hour kits. Alright, so let's talk about things that people may not think to include because I have a big one, which is a map of your state. Yes. Because if you lose GPS, do you know how to get anywhere?
Zoe Higgins 39:00
Do you know how to know the answer is? Absolutely not.
KC 39:03
Especially if you you know, okay, I have family in the next city. But it's like, I wouldn't know how to get there. If I didn't have like a roadmap, a literal roadmap, and most of us don't have those anymore.
Zoe Higgins 39:12
And even like practice looking at it, like making your bathroom reading for a week where you look at it and say okay, I would take this and this because a lot of us I remember my parents using maps back when we were kids, but I have not picked up a physical map and like mapped around in ages. So become familiar with your supplies in general as well as looking at maps, you know, know if you have a special kind of can opener the first time you use it should not be when you need it most.
KC 39:41
The other thing I think is good to have is if you don't have access to phones or anything like that is to have printouts of something that basically is like a note to your neighbors and a bonus if you can laminate it that basically says like, Hey, we're at this address I don't know you know if you need something come to us let's whatever you If something happens, you can quickly go and sort of drop that into or under, you know, put that on somebody's as a way of pulling together, I'm gonna steal that that's
Zoe Higgins 40:08
a great idea.
KC 40:09
And for that reason, we have radios to like, if you have, we have a friend that lives a mile away. And we don't have this yet, but we're like, you know, we should invest in like long radio like walkie talkie so that we could like contact each other. That's
Zoe Higgins 40:21
my next investment actually, that's what I'm researching which one to get now while I save up, but like a good communication system when cell phones are down.
KC 40:31
And speaking of like, affording these things, one of the things that my mom and I did for a really long time is like this was our Christmas gift to each other for years, especially when I got to the point my adulthood where I was like, Okay, I don't I'm going to be okay if I don't use Christmas as a way to get like my basic needs. Right? Totally. But he kind of got to the point was like, I don't need more stuff like more like random things. And so my mom and I would give each other emergency supplies stuff and so it was like a way of using that budget to do that. And that was still fun. What about go bags? What's a go bag? What's a bug out bag? Like what is that? What how should that be different? Where should that be?
Zoe Higgins 41:07
Bug Out Bag is essentially the bag that you have. If you're told Okay, we got to evacuate right now. And you have minutes to do it. Your bug out bag has copies hard copies of all your important documents, it has a lot of what would be in a 72 hour kit maybe a little smaller depends on if you also have a separate like I have a go bag in my car at all times that has stuff specific to being stuck in my car. Your go bag is when you have to evacuate with not much time at all. And it's what you grab and you know everything's in there camping stove. Camping meals are great, portable way to transport food instead of having to shove a bunch of cans in your bag. And they're super lightweight.
KC 41:46
Yeah, I have a go bag in my car as well. I think my biggest splurge was the boat. I have a four person inflatable boat, we have a foot you know thing. So you know, but that would take like hours. But that's one of the things that we would use our emergency battery for is we have an electric pump, but it is a full on or person raft with oars. And part of the reason we have that is not necessarily like I can't imagine a scenario where we would need to actually like evacuate via boat. But there absolutely have been scenarios where you need to go get your neighbor that's
Zoe Higgins 42:21
exactly what I was gonna say or if you can't use your boat, there's somebody doing rescue efforts that can use your boat and that's another free way to prep I always tell people like if you have no money to put towards your prep, start getting invested in your mutual aid group your local mutual aid group start talking to your neighbors make sure you have each other's numbers that you have a friendly I give all my I've chickens so I give my neighbor's eggs to stay with good rapport and apologize for the sounds of chickens all the time. And just keeping up that rapport with each other so like I know the first thing if we get a hurricane I'm texting Judy next door to see if they got everything they need. And I'm also talking to the elderly man next door to make sure he doesn't need me to go to Walmart for him. You know stuff like that.
KC 43:04
Let's round it out with talking about some safety things that people may not know when prepping the first I want to start off with is that fire should be your last ditch effort and you should truly be choosing between freezing to death and starting a fire because every time there is a severe weather incident around cold especially in the south, people die from setting their homes on fire because they are so desperate to get warm happened in 2021 It happens every single time
Zoe Higgins 43:36
yes and in the same vein, be really aware of co2 poisoning and specifically having co2 alarms that are powered by batteries so they aren't linked to your electrical wiring if that's down make sure that those constantly up fresh batteries for like a big freezer somewhere where you might want to be using a gas stove indoors or something like that. I always will I'm also like dealing with high heat so I always use our camping stove outside I know that you can technically use them indoors It freaks me out if I'm able to cook outside I'm going to be doing it outside
KC 44:12
Yeah well I'm because we have a gas fireplace and a gas stove we have co2 anyways but my fear would be like what if there's a rupture or you know, especially if you're in a place with with earthquakes, you want to be able to be alerted to that you want to be careful with your space heaters. space heaters are one of those things that start fires a lot. So you don't want to put them in an enclosed area necessarily don't put them inside of a tent don't put them they really need a lot of space around them and we have space heaters but we specifically have this type of space heater that has a this thing on the bottom that when it's depressed it turns on but if it ever becomes undepressed Like if it gets knocked out,
Zoe Higgins 44:49
oh my does the same. It'll turn itself off.
KC 44:51
Right and then we talked about water having an expiration date. I think that's important just so that everybody knows if you do have a generator you have to Run your generator outside, you can not run it in your garage. In fact, you're supposed to run it at least 16 feet away from your house, they
Zoe Higgins 45:08
emit so many fumes and contribute to deaths every single time there's an extended power outage and most
KC 45:15
of them take gas. And people may not know that gas is not something you can just throw into your garage and forget about
Zoe Higgins 45:23
oh, yeah, no, it does expire quicker than water even.
KC 45:27
And you have to keep it in a special container. Yes,
Zoe Higgins 45:30
I also think people should just be aware of the signs of co2 poisoning. Like if you all are running something in your house, or maybe you're not, there's a leak and you don't know it. If everybody in your family is having a headache, go outside and assess. It's not the time for everybody to take a nap. That's it's time to be suspicious. There was a gas leak in one of the college houses when I went to college. And these students were so smart, literally one of them got a headache, and just decided to tell somebody else in the house. And he was like, I have a headache too. And they all put it together, they had headaches and they went outside. And I was like I don't know, if I would have been that smart, I might have just kept it to myself and gone and taken. Now the other
KC 46:08
thing with extreme heat to be aware of is that some of the homes in Houston and probably other places, even if it's not a huge home, like I was on a 200 square foot home and it was a three story home we have two different thermostats so one unit, but two thermostats. And then some bigger homes will have two units where like one is powering the upstairs, one is powering the downstairs. And tragically there have been instances where the upstairs unit shorts out but the downstairs unit doesn't. And there's a child sleep or a baby sleeping upstairs while the parents are actually sleeping downstairs and they don't realize that the temperature is skyrocketing upstairs. So in normal day to day stuff, you know you can get like eco bees and things like that you can even get these there look like little pucks that will alert your phone to high heat like detection. Oh, I have those in my chicken coop. But it is just something to be aware of. If you're going into a storm, you know, you might lose power. You know, you don't want something weird to happen where the top shorts out. But the bottom doesn't wear the top shorts out first or heats up first. That's certainly important. Along the lines of water, one of the big things that you hear especially for just sort of like the lay person who maybe isn't like over prepped when it comes to water is people will say fill your tubs fill your bathtubs, this is a great way to stock up on water for bathing. For flushing toilets. That's a big one. But one of the things to be aware of is that having a tub full of water can be very dangerous. If you have small children that might walk in and go oh, bath time and get into the bath. You know, you want to be very careful. And so some things that people have done to get around that. One is that sometimes people will just put probably the cheapest thing is just put a latch lock at the top of a bathroom door so they can lock the bathroom door up high so that their children can't get into it. And then some people will go and actually splurge for there's a thing called a a water blob. And it's like a big huge bladder that you can put in the bathtub and then use the bathtub to fill it out. But it's like a bladder like you can't write you know what I mean? You can't get into it. It's closed and we don't have one of those but I do I am aware like one of the reasons why we don't fill bathtubs in my home is because I have small kids one of whom is autistic and loves water and it totally totally does. So anyways, in conclusion Zoey, the leftist prepper Do you have any like lasting thoughts? Especially I wonder around like anxiety because I feel like there's probably people listening who now have so much anxiety off the charts, you know, how do you go about this kind of hobby or this kind of maybe passion project without getting into sort of anxiety, desperation? Fear.
Zoe Higgins 48:48
I love that you asked that because when I started it was out of anxiety. It was my first tropical storm was coming in. I never weathered something like that. And I'm frantic, you know, and I think starting really small and reminding yourself the world is not ending the world isn't ending we are okay. And unless there's an extenuating circumstance, nothing bad is gonna happen tomorrow, likely it's just going to be a normal day, I always felt best knowing that even just like an extra two cans of food a week, I was still preparing, I still had something and I also started with my cheapest supplies as opposed to going right out the door investing in like a $600 power storage thing. And that was made it doable for me and that made it accessible for me just remind yourself the world isn't ending that we're just starting small and we're doing what we can I also think
KC 49:43
that if you live in a place where you have close neighbors or your own apartment complex and you know people in your complex, it's okay to split up some of those things of hey, like, I'll care I'll do some extra water you do some extra food you pick up some extra flashlights.
Zoe Higgins 49:58
I love that. I think that That's ideal. Like I think if you're able to do that and you are able to build those kinds of relationships, that is ideal because like my lasting thing I want to leave people with is the reminder that community is at the core of any successful preparation. There is no such thing as surviving a disaster a lone wolf and even if you do survive it might be pretty miserable. Well, thank you
KC 50:21
Zoe. Just because this is actually important and I forgot to say it in our safety ones don't ever hide in your attic against floodwaters. You will get stuck there and not be able to have
Zoe Higgins 50:31
a hatchet even though people say to keep here they tell you to keep a hatchet in your attic to hatch through. Have you tried to hatch it something lately?
KC 50:40
I promise you I couldn't do it.
Zoe Higgins 50:41
I couldn't do it. No, it's best to get out. The other
KC 50:44
thing that's really important and I always see these on tick tock do not go into floodwater if you can help it like unless it's really really necessary for your survival. Do not go out and flood water do not walk in floodwater. floodwater is not regular water. floodwater is toxic. It has gotten into your sewer system, like your sewer system and various bodies of water like think of all the bodies of water like you have your sewer system. You have stagnant lakes would brain eating amoeba in it like it's a lot of people after Harvey got very sick from the floodwater, and sometimes you can't help it you have to go out to survive. You have to write but every time I see tic TOCs of people like playing in water after a flood, I'm always like, Ah, don't do it. Right. Okay, well, thank you so much. So we tell people where they can find you on Tik Tok.
Zoe Higgins 51:35
I am at tick tock at quarantine, ya know, and it's so we left just preffer thank you so much, Casey.
KC 51:41
Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai