The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Community Emergency Response Teams

Episode Date: July 21, 2024

Rick Austin, the Godfather of Prepping and author of Secret Survival Garden, joins us to discuss how to turn a loose-knit group of people into a community response team.

Welcome back to the Changing Earth podcast with author Sarah F. Hathaway and co-host Chen Gibson. Blending survival fiction and fact to bring you entertaining education that will help you dream, survive, and thrive. And now, here's your hosts, Sarah F. Hathaway and Chen Gibson. Hello, and welcome back to the Changing Earth podcast. This is episode number 456, and if you didn't notice today, we are launching right into the show, because I am not saying, hey, Chen, what's up? I am welcoming Rick Austin to the show how you doing today Rick I'm doing good I feel special yeah yeah we're just we're just having ourselves a live finale here with Rick because you got into the CERT program this is something

that I heard of years ago I mean gosh it has to be like five, six years now that I heard about the CERT program for the first time was like, wow, that'd be really cool. And then learn like it really wasn't happening in California. And I knew about it from a gentleman, James Hart, that I used to interview. And he had a crew out here in Texas that was going, you know, putting these CERT teams together. out here in Texas that was going, you know, putting these CERT teams together. So you have already started doing this. And I am so proud because one of the biggest things that I think is lacking, especially in the preparedness community,

so many people want to just hole up to themselves. And it takes a village, right? It takes a village to do everything. The minute you have a major medical emergency. You sound like Hillary. Yeah, oh no, don't say that. Don't say that. That's just a bad omen.

No, but the minute you do that, like the minute you have your first medical emergency, you're going to realize like, man, I wish I had this, this, and this as part of my community. When it happened to Brock with his kidney stones, it was like, holy crumb. You of my community. When it happened to Brock with his kidney stones, it was like, holy, you know, holy crumb, you need your community. So I'm really big on communities, protecting communities, and you've put this group together. So go ahead and welcome yourself. I'm

sure the Prepper Broadcasting community and the Changing Earth community are very familiar with who you are. But for anybody who's listening for the first time go ahead a little intro and then let's jump right into it all right i'm rick austin i've been a prepper before they called them preppers literally all my life boy scout on up um and um i've been doing sustainable gardening and living off grid for the last 17 years, grow all our own food, etc, raise our own livestock. So they call me the survivalist gardener. And recently in the last couple of years, the folks at Prepper Broadcasting have given me the nickname, the godfather of prepping, and I wear it proudly.

Yes, sir. the godfather of prepping, and I wear it proudly. Yes, sir. So, yeah, and my wife and I, Survivor Jane, put on a prepper camp every year, and this is our 11th year, biggest event yet. We are the number one preparedness off-grid living homesteading event in the country, 11 years running, and bigger than anything anywhere. And we get people coming from all over the United States to the Appalachian Mountains where we hold it for the three days, 64 classes a day, three days of the event. One charge for everything, no extra charges, no up charges, no extra charges for classes, no materials fees, none of that stuff.

So one price for everything. And it's, we have the, I think the premier professionals teaching each class in their subject knowledge area. So, you know, we teach people everything from how to make soap to, you know, home. And we even have classes that are more geared toward what I think we're heading toward. So we've got a lot of classes that are really civil unrest oriented and potentially military threat on our soil oriented. So we've got one guy who is teaching guerrilla warfare, which may sound kind of crazy, but this guy actually teaches guerrilla warfare in foreign countries. So it's pretty cool to know how to do it. And, you know, there's a book, an old book out called War of the Flea. And it's really how you fight a much stronger force. And it's kind of hit and run, hit and run, hit and run, hit and run until the enemy just concedes and gives up.

So if anybody remembers the movie Red Dawn, that's what it is. That's all. That's what it's about. Oh, that's old school. You're going back there. Well, there's a newer Red Dawn, but you know what? Exactly. So, yeah, so we, you know, we teach everything from just general homesteading skills, Yeah, so we teach everything from just general homesteading skills, growing your own food sustainably and livestock to all kinds of different stuff and putting solar panels in your house, etc. So it's a great, great thing and I'm really happy with all the classes that we got this year. We try to have about 20 new classes every single year with new instructors just to keep things fresh

for people that come year after year. And we've got a really, really good lineup this year. Well, I am absolutely honored to be a part of that lineup. I've been able to take the anti-kidnapping and anti-sexual assault assault my self-defense classes and teach some classes around here locally and hopefully I'll have the ways and means to do that a little bit more nationally given that the problem seems to have grown exponentially again while we had a little change of presidencies so Trump was doing such a good job of knocking back the human trafficking but

100 000 missing kids at the border you know yeah it's um yeah big problem pretty sick big problem so i i am um tickled silly to be a part of prepper camp very honored but also honored that uh you kind of encouraged me you know hey what do you got new this year, Sarah? And I was like, well, I've always wanted to do this class. And you were like, yeah, do that class. It's really forced me out of my comfort zone into exactly where I wanted to be. Which is great. Yeah, exactly.

I have people come up to me all the time saying, I'd really like to do this. I know you probably won't like the idea, but case in point, the guy that played the national anthem each morning, who was in the military and he played for the Arlington National Cemetery. And he just approached me in the middle of the year and just said, I just feel called to do it. He said, if you don't want to do it, that's fine. That's okay.

I'm not going to be offended or whatever. I said, I think that's a pretty cool idea. Let's figure out how to schedule it so we can do it like five minutes before the first class starts. It was absolutely amazing because I'm back and I'm watching the usual, you know, people talking before the classes and they're discussing what they're going to go see. And it's just all kinds of hubbub and everything else. And the second he started playing the national anthem, everyone turned toward the flag and put their hand over their heart. turned toward the flag and put their hand over their heart.

And Jane's got pictures from up above, and you can see literally every person in the event, basically a mile long, all facing toward the flag and this guy playing. And it was just amazing. Everything just time stopped. Yeah, the silence is just deafening. It goes from like the hum to just nothing. Like you can hear the pin drop. Yep.

It was really cool. Great addition. For sure. For sure. So, yeah. So, guys, if you don't have your Prepper Camp tickets, you're crazy. You need to get out there. You need to come see us.

It's a wonderful event and just great people all across the board um from everybody who helps out to the wonderful individuals who run it to everybody who's teaching there and just there to talk and share and you learn as much just from you know there's such a breadth of people there from every walk of life. So you learn just as much from them as you do from everybody else because everybody's there and sharing stories. And it's so open and welcoming. It's really a very special event. It's a very good tone that you set and a very good culture you created.

very good tone that you set and a very good culture you created. You know, and I really, there's something beyond me there. You can feel it. And what made me realize that it wasn't me doing it was that the first year, I think it was, we had these terrible thunderstorms that were coming toward us, just black, black clouds and lightning everywhere. And we watched as the clouds literally parted around the event and then continued on. And I told Jane, I think we're doing something right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't disagree.

I don't disagree. Yeah. And then first year I was there there those clouds didn't part though i was i got flooded but you got you got a chance to see you know the the patriotism and the the type of person that comes in action because everyone was there to take care of you. It wasn't like, oh, you're an idiot for getting wet, you know, take care of yourself. Oh, well, so what, you die of pneumonia. Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. And just the way the family, too, you know, the boys all rallied.

Everybody just comes together to turn the bad into a good situation and just laugh and giggle. Yeah, so it was great. Everything, right? The hand of the Lord working all the time through us if we will just quiet our minds and listen. Yep, absolutely. All right, so let's get into the CERT stuff. CERT, Community Emergency Readiness. Well, before I stop, let me say PrepperCamp.com.

Oh, yeah. I say PrepperCamp.com like Yeah. I say PrepperCamp.com every week if they can't find it at this point. They need to figure it out. We talk about it every day at the start of the show. That's why if you're in my audience and you've been thinking about going, you don't have

your tickets yet. Well, let me just provide a hand smack for you. Get her done. PrepperCamp.com. They they're 20 off right now so uh they'll be 20 bucks more um in like 15 days i know we're getting close it's like christmas i love the end of september even more than like christmas time this is the family reunion you want to go to so fun fun all right you were asking me a question yes so let's rip it up about the community community emergency response team and what i love the most was when you said this was just a bunch of country people who hardly

knew each other and now we're working together as a unit. That is special. That is hard to do. I've tried to set up groups before. Honestly, I never really went for the CERT stuff because I was a little leery of having any kind of government oversight. But, you know, when it comes down to it, we are the government. And if we don the government and if we don't stand and make a difference yeah nobody is let's hold that thought because there's there's

some really good i mean let me put it this way the guy who was doing our our training said there are three human beings total that manage the cert program now cert Now, CERT is C-E-R-T, stands for Community Emergency Response Team under FEMA. There's only three people. And so basically what they do is they create materials, training materials and stuff and vests and shirts and that sort of stuff, and then they distribute them. So they really don't keep track of people and names. Because that was something I was concerned about, too. I don't really want my name on another list that the government has. Right.

So, yeah. And there's ways around that. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, too. Okay. Sorry. I'll just jump right into it. Just to give you why and how this all happened, I was just like every other guy out there, and in particular probably even more because of who Jane and I are.

And we don't really want people in the community knowing that we grow our own food and that we are who we are on an international basis because I don't need 2,000 people showing up at my doorstep when the shit hits the fan. trying to think about comms and you know looking at an area study kind of like what mike shelby does and you know trying to see what we got for resources and then looking at um the neighbors because we really didn't know who the neighbors were because it's a very rural area and it's all spread out and different people you don't know anything about them but um you know we we looked at a gis tax map and started taking names and creating um you know this this uh this google map overlay of all the different properties and where the people were and what roads they were on and then looked at their voting records. And that told us kind of who

might be like-minded. And so we were looking at that for our own defense and then started thinking, you know, if we really think about this strategically, the more we reach out and the more information we gather, the further out from us they are, the more time we have to react to a situation coming in. And also, you know, you've got buffers between you and them or people that you can defend. So we kind of started a neighborhood watch, which was pretty innocuous. You know, it wasn't like a crazy prepper militia group that we were starting, and I don't really want to be part of that. It was just a neighborhood watch. Look, you know, we can look out for each other. We can keep in touch with each other. You know, when we see

something, you know, we can tell you when something's coming. And in a short period of time, And in a short period of time, we were able to alert the people within a four-mile radius of us of a home invasion down the road, of an escaped convict, of a bear in somebody's yard, of a wildfire. And we were able to just send all of that out on the signal app because we created this group for our neighborhood watch yep so and anybody that saw anything they could post something to the the neighborhood watch and so suddenly we're having interactions with people we've never had interactions with before and then they start sharing political stuff. Yeah. Because we're all like-minded. Wait, wait, wait. Before you go further. So this is just an idea of the Neighborhood Watch.

So you just approached their house. Or how did you approach them to suggest, like, hey, we're going to put together this app. And everybody's going to sign up to it. We're going to have this neighborhood. How did that happen? I would contact people on the street, like like if I was leaving or something like that. And there were people that I knew, you know, because there were farms around. And we had in the past kind of said, hey, there's a coyote head in your way or a pack of coyotes head in your way. You got livestock,

you know, we got livestock. And they would return the favor when there was stuff like that going. So there was some kind of conversation there, but nothing any more than just neighborly, hey, I'm a farmer, you're a farmer. If you hear some shots, I'm not going to shoot in your direction, but there's a reason for it. So there was that kind of thing. And so we moved from, you know, phone conversations to texting to, hey, let's try this Signal app, which is end-to-end encrypted. And, you know, nobody can see what we're saying that we don't want to have see. And the only people that can see what we're saying are people that are essentially in the group.

In the group, right. You can allow people in the group or you cannot allow people in the group so it really was a good way for us to get started and then suddenly people are sharing political stuff and that kind of information as well as you know weather and criminal and you know those kind of things so now you're getting people who are talking to each other thumbs up doing whatever so they're really feeling more like a community and they're like-minded and as we brought people into this neighborhood watch somebody would say well i know two other people that would be interested in this. So I would go with that person and I would go meet them. So they would see us, see me, and we'd start talking about communications and we'd start talking about the signal thing. And, you know, we've got into GMRS radios, which have about a five mile range.

And, you know, you can set up separate channels on those things. Right, so you can have radio to radio. Yep, so radios. And we talk about communications in the worst possible scenario and what can we do. And we've got people who now understand what Meshtastic is. now understand what meshtastic is and um for those that don't know it's it's basically um you're using a radio a tiny little radio that you carry on your person and your phone just becomes a keyboard and a a screen that you can see stuff so in the worst possible scenario that the grid is down, the cell phones, the towers run out of battery and or their generators die, there's no more cell service. And GMRS is only going to

get so far. So these little radios are Bluetooth to your phone. So even though your phone is absolutely useless as a phone, you can still text people and you can do the same thing you do in Signal. You create little groups. So your neighborhood watch group has a signal as a mesh-tastic group. And also there's a feature on it where it's kind of an ATAC military feature, but you can see the location of every one of your people in your group and you can see them as they move in real time. So it's really cool because you're looking at a Google Earth type map and you're seeing the location of your people. So if some, for us, it's great because, you know, when you're seeing the location of your people. So for us, it's great because when you're on the farm and you're in 55 acres and something happens, it's like Rick's not responding. Yeah, where is he?

You can basically see on the map where I am because I got that radio on me all the time. But then even beyond that, if you had any kind of defensive situation, you knew exactly who you had where. Exactly. That's awesome. And also, one of the great things about this is every single little radio is also a repeater. So if you've got some obstacle in your way or something like that, or your people are a little too far apart, if you've got people between you that have that little radio that are also on mesh tastic, even if they're not in your group,

that signal will go through their radio, bounce off their radio and to the person that you're trying to reach. So it, it was a great idea for us to also want to get more and more and more people on this whole community neighborhood watch, Unity Watch thing, and get them on to Meshtastic because we really wanted to cover the county. So I had a conversation with one of them. Go ahead.

Just for one second. How can other people tap into your network, though, so then they can see where your people were? They can't unless we invite them okay so you you know you're going to invite the people that you want to they can all have their own little groups and we can still be using and bouncing off their repeaters because that message will go through their repeater but they will never be able to see it because it's encrypted so only the people people that are allowed or part of your group will see it. So if somebody is in town 20 miles away and there's a bunch of people that are on Meshtastic Between that aren't necessarily in our group, we can still communicate with them. Okay. Yeah, that's way better than just using your yeah just look up you'd be able to hear

everybody um s2 underground has a really good um video on mestastic and atac um so that's that's on youtube but yeah check that out because i'll kind of give you the whole overview what it is but you know that's kind of the the end of the world as we know it communications so as long as you've got some little solar panel that can recharge your phone. That was going to be my next question. Recharge your phone and recharge the little radio. It doesn't require a lot of juice at all. So, you know, I've been actively involved with some political stuff.

And one of the mayors in our county got a bunch of little towns. And, you know, he's like-minded. And we were talking about, you know, what happens if. And looking at really what's going on in the nation and the world and the border crisis and the imminent threats and you know there's over 30,000 over 30,000 Chinese nationals of military age that have come across the southern border all wearing the same clothing all having the same kit all wearing the same backpacks understand that the Chinese Communist Party does not allow people to leave their country without permission. So they have their permission. They're coming into the country and, you know, they are creating

a lot of cells. Now that's 30,000, 30,000 of them. Think about 9-11. That was 19 guys that brought the United States to its knees for weeks. What kind of havoc could these guys wreak? I think we're seeing some of it now. I think we're seeing some hacks going on and some things going down. I think they're doing a lot of testing right now. going down and i think they're doing a lot of testing right now and the chinese communist party whether we care to believe it or not whether we want to keep their eyes closed to it they have declared war on the united states they've declared unrestricted warfare in the united states their intention is to be the dominant power in the world and in order to do that they got to knock the united states down so and they'd like to take our farmland while they're at it

yeah oh they do and they and they're you know there's a lot of um politicians that are captured by the chinese basically you know they're they're um paid off or they're blackmailed or whatever yeah and um so these guys are serious about trying to destroy the United States. So if you've got 30,000 people in and you're a prepper like you and I and you kind of know what happens if there's an EMP or grid down situation, the ideal scenario for them would be take down the grid, which is antiquated infrastructure, which is really in bad shape right now and very easy and very susceptible to attack. All you have to do is shoot out a few, you know, substations. They've already tried that. And you take down the entire power grid. Well, you know, the Department of Defense of war gamed this out years ago. If there was an EMP or their grid goes down, 80% of the population will be dead in two months because of lack of resources or people killing each other. Yeah.

And the ones that are left will be the ones that are prepared and in a place where they can defend what they have. And the other ones that are left are going to be the really, really bad psychopaths. So, you know, this is a scenario that we're concerned about. And the mayor and I met and talked about this and said, we need to develop a plan, you know, for the county. And I'm like, well, yeah, we should. So we got together with the sheriff, who is the highest constitutional officer in the county, and said, hey, you know, this is what we're concerned about. We need to do something. And he's like, totally all over it. is totally all over it. You know, he's got, at most, at any one time, he's got seven deputies that have to cover 600 square miles. And it's not 600 flat square miles, it's 600 mountainous square

miles. You got to go up and down hills and around corners and around hills and craggly stuff. And, you know, so he's like, yeah, like yeah yeah you know if something like this happens we need the citizens because there's no way we're going to be able to handle it yeah so and i'm sure like they have families too and stuff you know that's always the big question you know are you going to leave your family to protect your community or stay you know stay with your family. And when we talked about this Mesh-tastic thing, he says, oh, my guys are all using Signal right now, and they're all using their cell phones. And he said, you know, a new radio cost me two grand.

He said, how much are these? I said, 65 bucks. He's like, 65 bucks? And yeah, we could put one on the tower that you're using now, you know, that kind of sends out the broadcast signal. And he's like, oh man, this is great. So he's going, where do you buy them? So he's online ordering it while we're in the meeting. And so he's like, sees it. And then he realizes the more people, the more citizens we have on that network um the the more sustainable it is for everybody and the more that his deputies have a way to communicate with home

base and everybody else and he can use it to send a mass um info text out to everybody if there's something or if there's a grid down or if there's you know whatever the thing is the more people that are on it the more they're going to be able to share information yeah they can be like we're looking out for this guy you know give a description over it and yeah now you got your whole community working in unison yep and the sheriff already does that to people who are subscribed to a text thing. So, you know, that would be that's so he's like he's getting it. He totally gets it.

And plus, he confessed that he listened to a lot of Prepper podcasts. So, it's like, okay, this guy's got it. Yeah, he's on the know. So, it was contrary to what I expected where most sheriffs are like, I don't want you guys running around doing stuff. You know, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. This is, I want to hold my power. Yeah, right. Love that.

He really is, you know, community oriented. So it was, you know, so that was good. way beyond our own neighborhood, and we have expanded it with the sheriff into other neighborhoods, into different precincts, like voting precincts within the county. We've got, I don't know, 17 precincts or something like that. So we're really expanding it out all over the place, and he's bringing in people, and we're bringing in people, and the people that we brought in are bringing in people so we had a meeting actually on so we've been talking about doing this community emergency response team the cert thing it and should something happen should we have a one second after scenario and should you know the the um the the huge city of charlotte head our way

because they're heading for the hills because you know there's total civil unrest and it's a totally unsafe place to be um we need to stop them before they get here and you know there's there's a way to do that or even if we don't have that kind of scenario and people want to feel a little less like this is like I can't handle this sort of thing. Just a hurricane. Just, you know, something whipping through. Yeah. You know, an ice storm, you know, power outage for three days. And, you know, there's been plenty of that going on in Texas too. Absolutely. So it's, you know, those kinds of things where you

can help and you can be like a first responder before the first responder gets there. You know, you are, you help until the professional help gets there. So all kinds of stuff like that. And it's good, too, because the individual people go, I'm going to protect my family and my loved ones first and foremost. But if I'm part of this thing, this is a way for me to protect my family. Right. And I can give back, too. So it's a win-win for everybody.

Well, that's what I always tell everyone. Like, okay, so you're a family of four. Like, mom and dad are protecting and growing food and doing all this stuff. It's impossible. It's impossible to do that way. Even a military unit is typically 13 people. You know, you've got to have that way even a military unit is typically 13 people you know you've got to have that group and uh so i like the cert aspect of it because people that maybe aren't as on board they're not

thinking like oh i'm joining a militia or something right they understand the relevance of there's natural disasters there's things that could befall our community and this is our team that's prepared to handle that that i can call on if needs be right so i love how it kind of uh bridges that gap i'm all about bridging the gap there's so many people waking up right now it's amazing we're in a fantastic time you know jesus saved trump and just the awakening that's been happening since that incident oh my, if the good Lord doesn't know exactly what he's doing. So right now we've got to really be prepared to bridge that gap and welcome a bunch of new people into the understanding so we can have these prepared communities. And there's all kinds of learning experiences from a preparedness standpoint that you can get by being part of it because you can, a CERT group can volunteer. Now, you know, fire departments have to have ongoing training.

Police departments have to have ongoing training. Hospitals have to have mass casualty exercises every year by law. So you volunteer to be a victim and you get to learn while people are working on you, you know, hey, this is what this guy is and, you know, and here's how we do the triage stuff and, you know, we would pack this wound. I mean, you're doing it firsthand. You're watching it firsthand so that you can learn how to do it on your own loved ones if you ever need to. So we're, you know, we're, we're getting more integrated into the other aspects of the community, like the hospital, the fire department. So, and the, the, you know, the police forces and that kind of stuff. So, so it's like, oh, these guys are good guys, you know, the police forces and that kind of stuff. So, so it's like, oh, these guys are

good guys, you know, and, and we, we can rely on them if we need something. So it's not a us versus them thing, or they look at us suspiciously. It, it's really all in the way that we've approached this thing and taken it step by step by step so that we are helping them and they see us not as a threat, but as a help to them. And ultimately, you know, we're creating this group of people that can stand strong against whatever might come, whether that be natural or manmade, because it's going to protect their families and their neighborhoods. Well, also, too, there's always been the question of like, okay, so if something did happen and say it was a societal unrest, would the police force, would the military turn against the American citizens, right? And when you really set up a partnership like that, the chances of that happening are going to go down significantly because you already have a pre-existing relationship exactly and we and we are in you know in in with and under the

auspices of the highest constitutional officer in the county so you know he it's his duty to protect everybody and to follow the constitution and to make sure that everybody else follows the constitution in the county so he is the highest authority in the county higher than the than the the board you know that of of than the guys that basically run the county, he is higher than everybody. So it's a good relation to have. And we are lucky that we have a guy that is the whole CERT thing. And we literally had a five-hour class in one of our government buildings. The sheriff attended. He had a sheriff from a neighboring county attend who was interested in this stuff. And we had 25 people in a room where we were going through this. And the guy that came down, came down from Virginia. And he's a guy that I know, and you might know, Nat Sellers, the preparedness guy. And he does emergency management. That's his life. That's

his job. That's his training. So he does CERT training. He is a guy that does that sort of stuff. So he could tell us kind of the ins and outs and what you need to do and what you don't need to do. And he basically said, it's like this thing that fell between the cracks because FEMA is typically a top-down organization, and the Department of Homeland Security, under which FEMA exists, is a top-down organization. But because CERT's set up the way it is where there's only three people that actually do anything that run the program, and they're basically just sending out materials and maintaining their website, you really can organize your community emergency response team any way you want to. And you're not overseen by anyone. So we don't need to be involved with the sheriff here, but we want to be involved with the sheriff because he is like-minded

and it does give us that sort of credibility and that sort of access to places that we wouldn't normally have. But you could do this yourself. You don't need to have the sheriff buy in. You don't need to have the fire department buy in. You don't need to do anything. But you just go set it up. You register.

One person has to register or organization just registers with FEMA. Simple process. And then after that, anybody that wants to take the cert courses can, but you don't have to. Um, and you can take that stuff online if you want to. There's like eight little sections. So one's on,

one's on search and rescue. One's on, you know, fire stuff, but it's, it's, it's prepping stuff, you know,

it's, and when you have the physical classes you know it gives time for people to get together actually talk to each other look each other in the eyes know who each other are i mean we're missing out on so much of that these days so so in this five-hour class what i saw most important was the breaks where you got people telling stories and people who were talking to each other. And, you know, one woman was talking about the fact that she came up on an accident and, um, you know, she got out to see what she could do to help. And the guy who was in there

was pinned in there and it was really bad. It was like, like blood and like losing a limb sort of bad. So she's trying to keep the guy calm and some woman stops her car and comes over and she goes into hysterics screaming and like oh it's so awful and it's like now she has to pull this woman aside and say get in your car close the door get out of here leave us alone you're making things worse yeah so um in a lot of ways cert training tells you that you're kind of the calming force and when people see somebody there with a cert vest or you look official or whatever okay it's like you can breathe literally breathe a sigh of relief because you don't know what to do but these people can help you and even if it's

just because you're in a panic just calling the sheriff who you know to get somebody out there to do something so it's um and like i said it was it was really cool just listening to people talking to each other who had never talked to each other before, who might have even been suspicious of each other before. And it just became a great way to build camaraderie and teamwork. And after the meeting, it's like, I mean, just a five-hour session on a Saturday. Of course, I bought pizza, so that helped. But they were like, okay, what's next? What do we want to do training on?

What do we do next? Let's do training on a trauma thing. Let's bring somebody in who's an expert that can teach us what to do. They have those. If there's an active shooter. Yeah, they have those stop the bleed classes. Those things are amazing. Stop the bleed.

Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly what our next class is going to be we're and so now they're like okay let's let's meet once a month let's you know let's figure out what day we can all get together and stuff so that would have never happened if we had tried to start a county thing instead of starting at the the neighborhood level and working out and showing that it works at the neighborhood level and working out and showing that it works at the neighborhood level. If we had tried to do a top-down county thing,

you don't think it would have worked. No, nobody would have trusted it. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And like I say, your story was a perfect segue into what I was going to say as far as like because people see the uniform and they know you have some level of training, it's better than some dude out there in camos or whatever.

And then they're like, Oh, what's this psycho doing or whatever, you know, people immediately just judge and think certain things were humans. That's what happens. Yeah. And,

uh, that really highlights that point that I wanted you to make about, you know, it does provide that calming force and, what a good way into that, because it's so important. It's so, the trust issue is a big problem that we're going to have to tackle. And it's in, you're in a rural area and people are there because they want to be there. They don't necessarily want contact.

You know, if anybody walks up my road, they're likely to get shot. It's just, you know, you don't, you have no purpose on being here unless it's negative. So, and you had to work hard to get up my road because it's steep, it's two miles long, and you end up at my driveway. I got four vicious dogs that are going to take you out maybe before I can. And that's not just me, that's everybody that lives here because that's what they want. They want to be left alone. They want to take care of themselves. They're self-reliant. So this was a way to say hey you want to take care of yourself you want to take care of your family this is a way you can leverage everyone around you to help

protect you or to see trouble coming long before you would see it yourself to light up a network and get that community togetherness because yeah. Yeah. Because it's hard. It's really difficult. I've talked about community gardens in the past. I've tried to talk to city people about, you know, what if you had one floor of the apartment building that was like, you know, hydroponic systems for everybody within the apartment. And they're like, you know, that's great,

except my neighbor's a whack job. And it's like, man, you guys, there has to come a point where we stop calling each other names and start having a little patience with each other so we can have community again. The biggest problem with community anything, community garden, community

whatever, is the word communism that's in community. Fair enough. And it's if you know anything about history and let's say the pilgrims that landed on plymouth rock they had a communist basically a commune um when they first started and they almost all starved to death because there only a few people did the work the

rest of them were like uh you know i don't feel like doing it uh i'm gonna watch a soap today or you know we're gonna we're gonna see an indian play um you know it's it's like i you know i don't want to so what saved them was what has made this country great after that happened and it's it's said, Hey, this ain't working. We're, we're going to starve to death. So he divvied up the land and gave a plot to every person and said, you can work that land. You can do what you want with it. If you have a surplus, you can sell it, you can buy from other people, but no one's going to feed you. You have to feed yourself. people, but no one's going to feed you. You have to feed yourself. And when that happened,

people took responsibility for themselves and they weren't relying on someone else to do it for them. So, you know, that's really what happened. And that was the perfect example of the difference between capitalism and communism. That far back in the 1600s. That makes a lot of sense. It does. There's so many stories about the school teacher that gave out all B's or whatever. Well, the people that were getting A's quit trying hard because they were going to get a B anyway. And the people that were not doing well did even worse because they were going to get a B anyway. And the people that were not doing well did even worse because they were going to get a B anyway. So what did they care?

And yeah, you have to have a real reward, not just a participation award. So really cool. I spent some time in the former Soviet Union and we were being taken around by these people and they were saying, look at our wonderful apartments. And they had row after row after row after row, street after street, block after block of these kind of cookie cutter, five-story, six-story buildings

that were apartment type complexes. And I guess you could buy them or whatever. And I'm looking at them while we're driving down. I said, these things are pieces of crap. They're falling down. You know, the concrete's falling off. And they were so proud of them. They were only five years old.

They looked like they were 30, 40, 50 years old. It's because nobody cared because it was a communist thing. It didn't matter if they did a good job. They had no pride in workmanship. It didn't make any difference. I'm not going to work any harder than the next guy. So, you know, you get crappy quality stuff. And that was an eye opener to me too.

Like, wow, how did this happen? They're five years old and they're so proud of them. These are crap buildings. Such a dance. The American pride, the American exceptionalism, but yet the humbleness. Just a constant dance that has to be constantly maintained throughout history.

You can't go overboard with your pride. That's not a good thing either you know but uh it has made us exceptional as far as you can achieve what you want to and that's why people still want to come here um yeah they just don't see it in other places well some of the people that's why they want to come here right now there's a lot of them that are looking for for you know for the communistic hand out yeah yeah yeah and then they're like oh these sandwiches aren't good enough why don't you you know figure out how to make it work you know you could have done that and a lot of those places are beautiful they're coming from these tropic areas and stuff i mean some of them not so much i don't blame you haiti

areas like that but you know a lot of them those are great countries you're leaving behind for to do what, you know, so absolutely. Well, Rick, that was bomb. That was exactly the talk that I think I've been looking for on my show for a while because I've been, you know, trying to give some everybody, all the listeners a game plan for how they can roll out and really start making a difference in their community without having the real ticket on how to do that. This is a nationwide program. Anybody can get involved. Like you said, you can involve your law enforcement if they're great people. You don't have to if they're not on board. So this is truly something that you can do. And like I say, I think if it bridges those gaps of people are like, well, I don't want to be a prepper. I don't want to be one of those quote unquote crazy whack jobs or whatever.

This really bridges the gap. And like I opened up with, I was like, government program. I don't trust anything these days. But when you start, like you say, taking responsibility for your own land, right? Then you realize that that government is owned by us. It has to be managed by us. So we better get off our dinkies and do something about it. Right.

Right. Well, I'm going to go ahead. The whole cert thing, there's so much valuable info that you can get for free you know that that's that's just great i mean all for free because we're paying for it it's exactly right you know yeah and it is great info i've looked into it before they got the uniforms you know you get the hats vests shirts everything um so it's definitely a great program all right well i've got to jump into my changing earth news why don't uh it's been like i say i've been looking that's why i was like oh we're throwing the one more week of not reading the the virgins chapter i promise everybody we'll

get back to it next week but this was so important to me um to know how you guys brought it up from the ground and really made it grow. I'm super impressed. So I appreciate your time, big time. Yeah, well, glad to do it. We need to have more people save themselves because we got to do something. Right. And once we're ready to save ourselves, then we can actually begin helping each other.

Our communities can reach out to one another and be able to assist in those times. Great stuff. It's like I said in that meeting yesterday, I can't really control what goes on in Washington D.C., but I can control what happens in my backyard and my neighborhood and my county.

That's where we start. Amen. Give Jane a big hug for me. Will do. Thank you for coming on the show. Everybody, you can meet Rick. Come out. Say hi.

Preppercamp.com. Get there. You will not regret it. You will not regret it. All right, Rick. Thank you. Take care. All right.

Have a good night. Bye. You too. Bye. All right. Let's go ahead. Bye. You too. Bye. All right. Let's go ahead and jump into some Changing Earth News. Dream. Survive.

Thrive. This is Changing Earth News. All right, guys. Today is july what is today 21st holy smokes it is just flying by um july 21st 2024 um happy to have you guys with us i was like i haven't even looked at the chat all night long we've been just having a blast so um hopefully you guys got as much great information out of that as I did. Definitely going to be deploying some of those things in my area and seeing what we can do to get our community here a little bit more prepared. So let's go ahead and jump into it today. so let's go ahead and jump into it today um we've been having lots of solar activity all week um it's minimal though hasn't been anything like huge uh so minimal solar activity

um m class flares that kind of thing but man it has really upticked our volcanic activity on the earth as well as some really big earthquakes going on. So we are on Solar Flare Watch this week. Got some big monsters on there going to be earth facing. So definitely tune in. Check that out in the morning. Also, my guy Ben over at Suspicious Observers, he is trying to get enough money together to put a documentary out regarding what's going on with our polar caps and the solar activity and the magnetic shielding. So if you guys have a little bit extra, you want to go over there and help him make that dream a reality, that would be great. You can head on over to Suspicious Observers.

And if you just watch the YouTube channel, you're going to find out all the information there. Okay. On July 15th, 2024, there was 373 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger. The biggest of which was a 5.8 in the South Pacific Ocean near Samoa. There was a 3.4 earthquake in Sheridan, Illinois. I'm always just watching that area because it is around the New Madrid fault line I've seen a lot of things that are making me uneasy kind of this week so I would just keep eyes on the earthquake activity and stay prepared as always there was a hailstorm in in july that actually registered trace amounts of snowfall because there was so much hail that came down absolutely incredible to see in the middle of

july so um that's definitely worth noticing you know it wasn't any big deal but uh just very unusual occurrence on july 16th 2024 there was 382 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger the biggest of which was a 5.6 in the maluka sea near indonesia earthquakes and tremors were occurring in nairobi kenya there was a 4.7 earthquake that hit um caused some damage out there toronto was also hit by flash flooding big storm came through flooded out um pretty much everything there's even a drake i guess he's a famous rap star and his like mansion got flooded or something so uh that was pretty funny to watch on youtube i i'm sure he wasn't prepared for that moment. China's flooding situation are moving north. It is getting worse. It is deadly flooding. And actually today they have a tropical

storm headed towards southern China as well. So not looking good on that home front for China. In northwestern Indiana near Chicago, they were impacted by many tornadoes touching down. It's been estimated that 5 to 11 tornadoes touched down in that area by Chicago. It was part of this deadly derecho that moved across the Midwest. It's basically like midsummer storms that just get ripping across the Plains area. So those tornadoes were associated with that event. July 17th, 2024, there was 337 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger.

Biggest of which was, I didn't mark down the number. Oh my gosh. I think it was a five point something in the Celebsi near Indonesia. Wasn't very noticeable. We haven't really started upticking the activity at this point yet. However, there was a large earthquake swarm in Southern California. There was also a 3.7 earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica. Nashville, Illinois, they had a major dam failure, which caused a lot of evacuations downstream due to flooding. And in Yellville, Arkansas, Kansas, or Arkansas, Arkansas,

sorry about that, they had significant flooding due to storms there. And Burlington, Vermont also had rains with flash floods happening there as well. On the 18th of July 2024, there was 333 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger, biggest of which was a 5.6 in the North Pacific Ocean near Japan. Rome, New York was impacted by a tornado and Montana has been seeing a lot of significant wildfire activity. The Miller Park fire in particular was now at 1,760 acres. Now that just simply dwarfs the event that's been unfolding in Brazil. Brazil. Southern Brazil was getting all of that rain, but central western Brazil has the largest wetland, tropical wetland region in the world. And 700,000 hectares is like over 1.4 million acres of tropical wetlands. Very, very sad event that's unfolding down there. And you really just have

to attribute it to the changing earth and the moisture regions changing from what they traditionally were. We are on an ever evolving planet. It's not going to stay the same forever. The Sahara was green at one time. So it's just kind of heart wrenching to watch that happen. Lone Rock near Portland, Oregon, they were under evacuation due to wildfires. Farmington, New york they had a hail buildup that also covered um the ground made it look like it had snowed in july on the 19th of july there was 406 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger the biggest of which was a 7.4 earthquake in chile sicily has been hit hard by drought conditions and there was a 6.0 earthquake in the north pacific ocean

off the aleutian islands by alaska so the ring of fire just getting really really motivated to start making some moves july 20th 2024 there was 393 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger biggest of which was another 7.3 in ch. Lake Tahoe, California has an earthquake swarm going on. And there was a 4.1 earthquake in New Zealand. There was a very rare 2.1 earthquake that happened in Palermo, Maine. So we're talking the continental plate of the United States moving. So look it up online, you'll see where that plate really sits, and it would go up through Maine. So that's New Madrid, that's talking moving West Coast. So really eyes on that situation right now. eyes on that situation right now. 11 people are in dead or 11 people have passed away in China after a bridge collapsed. The rains just causing more flooding there. Stromboli volcano has erupted.

Ash is becoming a major problem there. Multiple fires burning in Los Angeles County. There's been lots of little hot spots all over California. And in Bulgaria, they're also dealing with wildfire issues as well. Today, July 21st, 2024, there was 390 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger, biggest of which was a great big 6.2 deep earthquake in Guatemala. Luckily, a lot of these big earthquakes have been deep earthquakes, but eventually that stuff's going to rattle to the surface. So we're just keeping eyes on hasn't been like really, really damaging though, because of the depth of these earthquakes. There was a 5.3 earthquake in Hokkaido, Japan, and more flash flooding impacting Rudioso, New Mexico. So that place

has not been able to get a break. They had really big wildfires there. And then once the monsoonal rains came in, now they've just been getting flooded ever since. Tropical storm Carina or Gami. It is impacting the Philippines today. Also, there's a tropical storm, impacting the Philippines today. Also, there's a tropical storm, Paparoon, that we discussed last week that was moving in the Vietnam area. It has upgraded to a tropical storm and it's set to impact southern China. Iwo Jima, the new Mayan volcano erupts. This is another brand new volcano that will form a new island out there by Japan. So we're seeing a lot of volcanic activity. Mount Etna is also getting ready to erupt again. There has just been tons of ash coming from Stromboli and Etna into those areas of Italy.

So it's been big problems over there as far as those volcanoes are concerned. And they always impact travel as well. You can't there as far as those volcanoes are concerned. And they always impact travel as well. You can't fly the planes when these volcanoes are going off. Also on the 21st, we had 87 new wildfires start up in the last 24 hours in British Columbia. So that's a big problem. In Colusa County, California, there is also another rapidly growing fire. 50 structures are threatened and they're actively evacuating citizens there. As far as our volcanic count goes, there currently are 33 volcanoes erupting. That's up one from last week.

There's 29 showing minor activity. That's also up one from last week. And there are 26 showing unrest. That also up one from last week. And there are 26 showing unrest. That is down one from last week. We added one more to the list this week. And since we always talk about that, I wanted to look at a total number. So there's currently 88 volcanoes erupting on planet Earth right now. That is a pretty darn high count. I can tell you, I've been watching these numbers for years, and to see that number steadily sitting at 33, 34 volcanoes erupting, that's really big. Usually it's down below like 28. So just really interesting. But then, you know, you got the one

showing minor activity falling right behind it. As far as wildfires in the United States of America, we are at a preparedness level of five, which is our most heightened level possible. We have 10 new large fires. We have 63 large active fires burning right now for a total of 746,000 acres on fire. Five of those fires are contained at this time. The number one state for wildfires, I don't know if Alaska got rain or what, but they went from like 400,000 acres on fire last week. Yeah, yeah, 369,000 acres on fire last week to not even being on the list this week. So I don't know if Alaska got rain and boom, it just put out all their wildfires.

If that's the case, awesome. That's so awesome. But Oregon actually skyrocketed in their count. So their numbers more than doubled. They have 19 fires burning right now, a total of 474,000 acres on fire in Oregon. This is coming from six new fires and none of them are contained, or there's six new to those 19 and none of those fires are contained at this time. In California, they're number two on the list. They have 10 fires actively burning for a total of 95,234 acres. They have no new ones and one of

those fires is contained. Montana has also made the list. They have five fires burning for a total of 57,120 acres. They have no new fires getting added to that list, but they have one that is contained. And number four on our list is Utah, just because we don't usually see them on the list. I wanted to include them. They have five fires actively burning, no new ones, but none of these are contained and it's currently consuming 36,630 acres. All right, guys. Well, that's all I got for you today. sorry if you've been waiting on the bit to hear um virgis but like i said we will play the book part again next week i just wanted to give rick as much time as possible to be able to outlay all that cert information to you because

um honestly it's a program i was really interested in the past and then after seeing the success that they've been having with it and how they rolled that group out, I think it's a great format to follow. And I would highly recommend you start thinking about, you know, getting one together in your community and seeing who you can get on board for that. All right, you guys. Well, Chin will hopefully be back with us next week. He's been having a little bit of family problems, so everybody say a prayer for him that he can keep his head on straight

during all of these challenging times. And if you'd love to support the show, I would love it if you did. You can head on over to ChangingEarthSeries.com. That's ChangingEarthSeries.com. Become a supporter over there. If you're not into becoming a supporter, head on over to my YouTube channel or just head on over there anyway. I'd really appreciate that. Give the video a like and a thumbs up.

I've got some pretty exciting things coming up for what we're going to do for the binge episodes for the audio drama. And we're just about ready to release block two for season four. So good things happening all the time. Keep praying. God bless America. Jesus saved Trump. The man's here for a reason. You know, it's so great to see everybody uniting and waking up.

And I really believe this is our moment in history. So please don't let it pass you by. Open up your eyes. Get out there and make a difference where you can. All right, guys. Until next time, remember, dream, survive, thrive. Thank you for joining Sarah and Chen for this episode of the Changing Earth podcast. Don't forget to pick up your copy of Day After Disaster, Without Land, The Walls of Freedom, Thank you.