The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Hurricane Helene Camping in Flooding Masterclass

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

Surviving Hurricane Helene at Prepper Camp 2024. Thoughts from Prepper Broadcasting Hosts, Ryan Buford, L Douglas Hogan, Jordan Smith and Jasmine Biondi. How we faired camping in the rain as distruction swirled around us. Did you attend Prepper Camp? Get your Hurricane Helene Survivor T-shirtWe overstocked books for Prepper Camp and Hurricane Helene made other plans. Don't miss out on The Changin Earth Clearance Sale!!

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 466, and we got one heck of a show for you guys today. We are one week past Prepper Camp today. one week past Prepper Camp today. Hurricane Helene came in and hit us all while we were at Prepper Camp. By the grace of God, we only had a couple of trees come down on the whole property.

It was chaos all around us. But we had a lot of the PBN hosts out there, so we thought it would be a fun show to have everybody on. Well, not everybody that was there, but we tried to get a lot of us together. So I've got, first up, ryan buford's here with us hey ryan what's going on hey how we doing it's great to see you hear you again anyway yeah yeah we're not worrying about i'm not getting out this sunday yeah right that's kind of nice right We got old Douglas Hogan in the house. How are you, Doug? What's up, Sarah? I'm well. How are you?

I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I finally got to calm down a little bit on Friday, so it was a good day. And of course, I always let the ladies go first, so that's why we had Ryan and Doug up first. Thanks, Sarah. Hey, you know. So we've got Jordan Smithordan smith in the house

hey jordan hey y'all and we got jb in the house i'm gonna get up my live chat here so hi jb how are you i'm fantastic you're home you were like the one. First one in and last one out. You guys got to give JB a hand because, oh, my gosh, crazy experience. Yeah, I think she just got home. Yeah. When did you get home, Debbie? Friday. Yeah.

Got home on Friday. And when did you first start doing runs out for gear and stuff for Prepper Camp this year? Two weeks before the event. Two weeks before. So this has been quite a month for you. Quite a month. Definitely an adventure. Do it again.

All right. So let's just go around and we'll just kind of talk about, know before um prepper camp i was watching the weather for days and it was clear it was gonna be sunny it was gonna be beautiful and wasn't nothing in our way and then this disturbance starts in the gulf so just some of your guys's thoughts on like what you were thinking um you know we all still up. Some people didn't. Just some of your thoughts on how that process was for you. Go ahead, Ryan. Start us off. I also watched for several weeks ahead of time. I booked my flight. I flew in from Washington State. I booked my flight back in, I don't know, February in my hotel and maybe May or June. Um, cause I flew

into Charlotte and then caught a ride to get over to Prepper camp, but I was watching the weather and really paying attention, especially the, the 10 day forecast. Cause that was going to dictate my gear that I was going to bring and, and changes in that regard. So yeah, I was definitely expecting rain this year, but nothing like what we got at all. So I had to change out some of my pack and make sure that I had the right gear on hand to make it through the weekend for sure. How about you, Doug, coming in from Midwestern Boy there? I just changed my microphone up. Can you hear me all right?

Yep. Yeah, we can hear you good. Okay. No, so, yeah, I mean, we knew in advance that this beast was coming in. Didn't know how crazy it was going to be. You know, I knew that it was coming inland. Usually these things don't go so far. They kind of break up and turn into a tropical storm before they get, you know, usually

beyond, you know, Florida or whatever. This one had a little bit more juice behind it. You can look at the conspiracy theories and, you know, maybe see how they were saying some of this stuff was coerced, whether it was coerced a little bit, and it seemed to linger. I know as we were there,

I could see that it was, you know, our signals were in and out, and I just feel that it was, you know, our signals were in and out. And I just feel that it kind of lingered a little bit longer than it should have. It should have been pushing on, just kind of almost sat in one spot and just kind of spun over us. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, knowing that it was coming, I came prepared for wet weather. I mean, you know, I had my frog-tog tops and my black waterproof kilt. Your skirt.

Your sassy skirt. But you know what? I learned that nothing is waterproof. Yeah. Fair. Fair. I had rain gear with me, so I learned that as well. Okay, Jasmine.

So, actually, let's have Jordan go first because, Jordan, you're still, you're really close. I am. And I grew up in the foothills. And like I've said on the Monday night show and on my show, I am accustomed to tornadoes hitting. Not tornadoes, sorry. Hurricanes hitting. But they usually die down. This is actually the first time a hurricane has ever hit as intensely as it has and kept going.

So for us, though, even the forecast, like you said, we weren't seeing it as anything in the news. We're saying once it hit landfall, it would die down, it would pewter out. So for us, I mean, we didn't see it as a concern. Like I said, I grew up in the foothills of the Ozarks. So by the time a hurricane hits us or even my family or who are here in the Appalachian and Smokies, it's not an issue. So we didn't even think twice about it. I mean, luckily we were safe, but I never got one of those odd feelings. My family and my infant son, we still went. And I tell you what, knowing what I know now, I still would have gone. So, I mean, we were

as ready as we could have been, but there was no way for us knowing that it was going to keep going the way it was, but it didn't stop us. We came in actually, um, we headed out Wednesday night at about midnight and got into Orchard Lake probably about five, 12 in the morning. So, you know, for us, we were able to get in and then once we figured out what was going on get set up so it was it was one of those we had no way of knowing what the storm was going to do once we got here right so jb you were almost on the road as that thing was forming like you almost left when it was still clear forecasts.

How did that transpire, like finding that out as you're going back and forth? Well, I'm not going to lie. I didn't know until I got there that it was going on because like until like it started pinging up in our backroom chats. But I was just going along. I was preoccupied with my own little personal talk. Yeah. My trip getting there. So I was like, gun-ho that I was going to make it to this thing.

Because I had all the audiovisual for the event. So I was making sure that I was going to meet my deadlines and driving the whole way through and then when we got there because I had to ditch most of my preps in my car in South Dakota along the way we had to pick up new stuff when we got there and when I got there we just got like the warnings tropical storm coming through and it really wasn't anything that was alarming to me right um when the storm actually hit on thursday night um i was i was staying in ashville in a hotel the clarion and i was looking out the window and i'm like oh those trees are moving It's just kind of like at home because we get galing winds off the coast and used to seeing our trees bend. So I wasn't too worried.

It wasn't until I got on the roads and I was like, whoa, this is bad. Yeah. Coming from Texas, we saw what was happening down there. And I mean, we're in Texasas so there's lots of hurricanes that come up through and when you're on the outskirt of a hurricane like it can be going by and you don't even know it's there um so from what we can see it was forecasted to come into florida be a problem in georgia um and then go up and break up over the mountains and head out into like the Ohio Valley so we were like you know you could be right on the edge of a hurricane and never even know it's there

so as long as we get out ahead of it you know going to Georgia we should be fine so we loaded up took off early so we could get a jump on it. We did hit rain in Atlanta on Wednesday night and then came in Thursday. And I mean, we were playing Uno and having fun on Thursday night. So it was quite an unexpected moment, I'd have to say of like, just, you know,

I don't think anybody expected it to hit like that at all. I do have to say that it was disaster all around us, guys. Like, all around us was destroyed and landslides. And we went out on some of the roads to try and go back road home. And it was absolutely just destroyed and so i do have to say that we had what was the grace of god yeah we have no clue though we had no we had no idea service there was no way for us to know the level of devastation like for me honestly it was like one of those heavy storms like i grew up with trees fall yep so beyond that i mean i didn't realize the the amount

of devastation after the fact there was no way because we couldn't get any news in yeah no and even with the the not the skynet but it was even with starlink we could get a message out and get someone to make a call out but but we still had no clue. And like everybody else was really assessing their current status at that point as well. And they couldn't really tell the world what was going on either right then. So, you know, Friday we did a late start. I think it was great that we did our classes and stuff on Saturday because the people that were there, that were already tucked in, that just spent that night in Tent City city they would have been devastated if we didn't you know pull it off

oh absolutely I mean we were already there though I don't think people realize is a lot of us just like Jasmine we were already there if not the week before if not the day before you know there are people who come in specifically an entire week before prepper camp to enjoy their time there was no way of knowing once you get up on that mountain signal is sparse to begin with especially if you're a verizon or at&t unless you're t-mobile i don't get signal up there yeah i hardly do i hardly do it's got to be like a hot spot out wi-fi call so um doug you came and got me on friday we're just about to nap out that was after the big storm we were all parked in a pack um the fields were just slosh city. So that was interesting.

What do you guys think about, like, your classes that day, just some of your personal experiences there? Because, you know, our beloved Prepper Camp event, we had to pull it off. So some of the feedback there. Yeah, so for those that are listening who don't know, like vendors and instructors are expected to be there a day early. Vendors specifically, I believe. Got to be there a day early.

Yeah, got to be there Thursday. So we were supposed to be, you know, teaching starting Friday morning, right? So we got to be there Thursday, which is why we're all there early. Even if like what Jordan was saying, you could be there a week early, but vendors got to be there a day early. So I was there Thursday, and, yeah, we were supposed to set up that Thursday, but because of the weather, we didn't set up that Thursday. In fact, originally we were supposed to set up at 1 o'clock Friday, and that ended up being like 5 o'clock Friday. And so we ended up getting – you're right. It was all slushy.

Like there was the field, the pond, the lake or whatever you want to call it. You know, it's a rather large pond, but the dock was at one point underwater and nobody could find it. The boats were gone. I think they were attached and they were missing. And the trees and, you know, the things around the pond lake that people thought were normally on the ground, you couldn't see the base of them anymore because they were under the water. However, you know, where we were vending in our tents, you know, it wasn't dry by any stretch of the imagination, but the ground was slushy, right? And then you see people like, I think it was Jordan,

I think you were wearing like, what was it, Crocs or flip-flops or something? No, I was actually in children-sized rainglasses because I can't find my shoe size to save myself. E.J. Snyder was there naked and afraid. He walked around with his size 14 freaking feet. Every time he stepped down, all the water would suck out from everywhere around the campground and just kind of go down into his foot. Then he'd let up and come back out again it was like those shoes yeah he was completely barefooted like he was just walking on barefooted and i wish looking back that probably would have been the way to go because my socks i went through i brought extra socks because i knew it was going

to rain but i went through them all and uh i was actually hanging them up truck to dry some of the ones that got wet earlier in the week. I took me two days when I got home to clean the smell out of the cab of my truck. It was just musty, freaking sweaty, wet clothes smell. It was gross. And Brock's like, he's a Marine, and he only brought two pair? Way to go. No, no.

I brought two pair of long, long boot socks because I expected two days of rain. I wouldn't like, you know, none of, like I said earlier, none of us were expecting to linger as long as it was. Yeah. But I brought two pairs of boot socks, so I expected two days of rain. And then I brought more, like, I wear, like, ankle highs. Ankle socks. With my tennis shoes.

Yeah. So I brought lots of those just because I like to keep my feet dry. I knew that the ground was going to be a little wet not i didn't know i was gonna step in a like literally a creek running to help somebody uh set up their their canopy yeah i was like what happened to you you're a mess man you saw me i was normal right i was all totally dry at least my knees and then and all of a sudden you see me and i'm covered next time you see me i'm covered in mud i just got this brown clay substance all over my legs and it's it was gross so what happened was there's this guy by himself trying to pull this giant canopy it's it's really

a two-man job to to open those things up and he was walking around it and he was laboring i'm like oh god you know so i went to jump over this little creek and land on the other side and the other side which should have been hard i sank i'm tall i'm six five and i sank from my foot to my knee just straight down into this clay just yes and that just like it made the slurping sound when i pulled it out it was oh man that's what i get for for helping you yeah no okay yeah right ryan my partner um oh go ahead go ahead jb oh i was gonna say my partner was rocking the ziploc bags for his feet because he didn't listen to me yeah yeah he was i actually have a picture of that posted on my instagram because it was it's smart but it is definitely entertaining but like like doug i had the same issue as i was walking was well before the

port-a-tons but i took a step and i sunk all the way down to my knee though it was it was just interesting and i'm not six five i'm only five foot two so for him it probably would have been ankle deep but for me it was all the way up to the knee yeah ryan now i gotta hand it to you because we all had vehicles um i even had two vehicles there because ellen drove one of my cars over there um so and i gotta give it to man because you like weathered that storm you didn't even have a vehicle there um talk about some of your gear and how you pulled that one off so yeah so i was hammock camping everything that i had with me i carried on the plane i didn't check anything so i had a backpack like a i use a oh gosh what's it called hyper light mountain gear um they make

dry bags that are backpacks that are extremely light um so i had that and before i left i realized that you know we were looking at anywhere from 10 to 12 inches of rain. And the day that I was getting ready to drive to go to the airport to get on the plane and go, I made a last minute decision because I was like, is this going to work if I take my normal leather boots and go or am I going to have to do something else? And at the last minute, I decided, you know what, I better take rubber boots and just deal with it. Because having, yeah, having rubber boots and being slightly uncomfortable is better than being, you know, having leather boots and being extremely uncomfortable with wet feet. So I decided at the last minute to just go ahead and suck it up and wear weather rubber boots through the airport and um i packed a weatherproof carpa parka carpa parka what is that called parka yeah um poncho there we go a poncho and um i got one that was an actual, it's a style of poncho that actually transforms into a tent. And it's made by One Tigris.

I believe it's a company out of Salt Lake. That thing's pretty cool because it covers your whole bag and everything. That's, for year one at Prepper Camp, I figured out that my go bag is not waterproof. So that had to be rectified. You know, everything that's in there now is wrapped up. Yeah. And before I left, I went and bought two more dry bags that are made out of a fabric called Sil Nylon. S-I-L Nylon.

And it's kind of a, it's like Dyneema, but it's a little bit different. But it's 100% waterproof and extremely lightweight. So I went through and I decided, you know what, if this is as bad as it's going to be, I'm going to need to pack stuff in dry bags instead of like, you know, just shoving it in the pack. So I kind of went above and beyond to keep my stuff dry and that alone saved me because I, oh yeah. So between the poncho and the rain boots and the dry bags and the dry backpack and all that kind of stuff, I actually had no problems with keeping my gear dry. The only issues that I had were the clothes that I was wearing. So I just wound up, you know, setting that stuff aside and hang drying it. But a lot of that was last minute decisions that I made to my pack.

Good ones. Yeah. That was impressive. I was like, man, you don't even have a car. Like at least we had like a reprieve area for a second you know to be able to get out of that rain and just have that that zone so and one one thing i did as soon as i got there too is i realized that so i i went from tent city over to one of the campsites because they offered it up there was a couple of cancellations and i was like shoot for 15 bucks more like let's just do it um and

actually i had some extra gear with me and i i'll talk about that later in the show um because i wound up blowing it out to to somebody but anyways um so i realized that this thing was coming and it's going to be a challenge to stay dry and i've dry i've done dry runs in wet environments before so i knew what it was like I've tried to start fires in the rain before and so for me this wasn't the first my first rodeo dealing with outdoor camping minimalist outside in heavy rain and I I did all that in safe environments like at my own house but this was altogether different and something that was just like oh yeah you know and you know my trailer didn't even hold up to the 18 inches of rain or whatever that came in it was a lot and it came in

really fast and really quick um so yeah i can't yeah i mean every single piece of gear was put to the test so i want to address um before we get into the gear because we're going to talk to you guys about some of the the tips that we found out as we went along. But before we go there, I wanted to talk a little bit because there's been some negative attention towards Rick and Jane about not calling the event off. And so I wanted to touch base with that a little bit because, first of all, it really bothers me. Every year of their life, they take the time to host this event. And if anybody thinks that they're making money at this excursion, they're absolutely 100% wrong and have never come to the Saturday night event to listen to Rick and Jane talk about their experience. And most years are barely breaking

even to get the expenses paid. The tickets hardly ever go up. And they've been doing this for a decade long. So this was year 11. So if you can imagine taking a huge part of your life and just dedicating it to making sure that people have access to people who are instructors and can teach and provide the safe space and they never make a big deal out of it and they don't want press there they just do this because they feel driven to do that and they took a lot of heat over the fact that they didn't cancel the event so a little

background you know you don't just order this like there are huge tents there we almost lost the main tent actually it's the size of a house out there in a field. And everybody was out there dragging it down. But you don't just order this stuff in one week and get it delivered the next week. This planning goes in well ahead of time. The hurricane, on the other hand, was the surprise event. And for anybody who was like Rick was encouraging people to come in even when it was hurricane, I have to strongly disagree with that because Rick was concerned about his own house

and his house being there and his animals still being alive. It was very much a scramble moment and you can look after the fact and say, well, this, that, and the um you know you just never know and this is not something that can be planned in a day or canceled in a day there's people that were already there there's people that are coming in from way across the country from other countries um so i don't know how you guys are feeling about that but that's just like my feeling on it i would love to hear your guys's opinion on um how heartless some of this has been. So I have seen the negative effects and, I mean, the negative comments. And I don't think people realize this really was an act of God.

This was not something Rick, Jane, or the rest of us could have ever imagined or even have foreseen. Like I said, I grew up in the South. I grew up in the lower half of the mountains. And I can tell you, it was an odd thing. But the amount of grief they're getting, I have firsthand saw a vendor come up and approach Rick and ask, so what's the call? And Rick told him, I can't make that for you right now we're waiting to see what the weather does once it clears on friday he goes but if you feel it is the best thing for you and your family then you're welcome to leave he never made anyone stay he never told people that they had to come on they just when we had enough signal to get messages out, just like they did, it was literally, we're not closed yet.

We had no way of knowing. So I think they made the best call for the situation they were in. And pardon my language, but it was one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't. Because what would have happened if they had canceled it and nothing had happened in it through past? Right. Then they would have been like, oh, what are you guys preparing for? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that would have been just negative also when it comes everybody should know that um rick

and jane and them are still without power still without internet so if you've been messaging them and you haven't heard a response yet they can't they don't know what's going on they can't get messages they're very limited resources right now so as soon as things are back up and running you know they're going to be reaching out um they're nothing but good-hearted people so um just please be patient with them they are still in the middle of this they didn't get to drive home to their home that's not in the disaster area um we did so um just please be patient with them and understand that they are going through it right now. Right, because they live in that area.

But I honestly think they made the best call. And for the people who were already there, especially the people who weren't as prepared as the rest of us, or not everyone can be as awesome of a prepper as Ryan. And I mean that in a positive, but it is definitely one of those things where I think it came about because I still had an amazing class both on Saturday. And even though Sunday was not as much of a turnout, I had a great one-on-one with someone that I would do it again. Yep. And prepper camp being in there, we got roads cleared before they were supposed to ever get cleared. One of the ladies right down the street went into labor during the storm.

She was able to get out to a hospital that didn't have power, but still she was able to because Prepper Camp was going on. There's differences that we made in the community. Right. I had a Prepper, I mean, not a Prepper, I had a local come up who attended Prepper Camp and tell me, what y'all did, we thank you. Because emergency services would have maybe gotten to us at earliest Monday or Tuesday. Then when I came down the mountain on the way out, I had this gentleman ran into, we were just trying to see if we could find milk for Jericho. And he even said what we did helped because of the fact that he had to cut himself out of his driveway.

That he said that it made it so much easier for him to get down to be able to help people because he figured he was going to be spending the next two days. Because he said the mountain does not get touched until about a week after any sort of disaster. And so for him, him and then the other lady who was further up the mountain, which they were all safe, fortunately, us being where we were was a blessing. But they said they were able to check on the elderly and the sick and the individuals who lived on the mountain who would not have gotten aid from any emergency services for almost a week if we hadn't cleared the road so prepper can't be in there no matter

how negative people want to put it i'm sorry you went through the disasters you went through but as a group we made a difference even locally and you know what that small difference made a big difference just for those lives right there right what about you uh doug how was your class and uh how did you know how did everybody respond what what was your feelings there i well i think i had good attendance i'm gonna let it whoever i think ryan was there i'm not sure if anybody else in this here i didn't make i was gonna come the next day and then yeah yeah it was hard to tell that there wasn't going to be a next day right um it was just those things but um just for the audience too so the audience knows next week we're going to

do your class on the podcast so everybody gets to experience it because it's uh i wanted to experience it that bad so stay tuned next week okay go ahead sorry that's okay no i uh actually actually it was surviving martial law for anybody that's wondering and i actually a long time ago uh several years ago i was uh vending as an author um at sensible mountain preparedness and i learned that if i if i if i let me suppose oh that, because the table, you had to pay for your vending table. But I found out that if I was just to teach a class, that I would have to pay for a vending table. And I go, oh, that's a good deal. So I put together Surviving Martial Law, which was an idea that I had been working on anyway for some time because I wanted to put something together.

And it was a success. It was actually originally a one hour course, which I had way too much content to cover. And I ended up going over and the people that was there to help kind of regulate the timekeeping and all that came up and say, I mean, your time is done. I had so much,

he literally got booed because he had to come up and get me and they wanted me to keep talking. Yeah. Yeah. It was to keep talking. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it was a good time. Right, and they understood that. So they gave me the next time, they gave me a three-hour class. I'm like, yes!

So did I have enough content for three hours? No, but I made enough content for three hours, right? So it ended up being so good that I wrote it into a book. And so this has been, I've been teaching this for years, surviving martial law, for at least probably five years, I'm going to guess. And it's always a success, and it's always got good turnout, and I always get a lot of good compliments out of it. And this class was the first time I ever taught this at Prepper Camp. And I originally pitched the idea to Rick, and Rick actually – I guess he told you that he really enjoyed the content that I gave him. that he really enjoyed the content that I gave him. And he had emailed me back and told me that it was good stuff.

And all the chairs were filled, as I recall, and there was people standing up even. Even though we had extra chairs that people could grab and kind of sit down on. Yeah, we didn't want to settle. I didn't have, I don't know, I wasn't really thinking about it, but I probably could have told you, hey, grab a chair and sit down, you know, just kind of make yourself at home. But I felt that I had a good turnout. And I'm all, you know, when you get around to Ryan, let him talk about if it was a good content or not.

But I did enjoy teaching. It's something I enjoyed talking about, and it had a good turnout. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't have changed it, like I said. I think everybody that was in my classes definitely enjoyed it, and I think it was, you know, a magnificent distraction as well for them because here they are. You know, it was a rough night in a tent. And at least they got to, you know, have some of the experience because a lot of speakers didn't make it in and things like that.

So, like I say, that nobody was encouraging them to get there. It was, you know, you got to do what's right by your family. And when I wanted to leave on Sunday, that's exactly what Rick and Jane told me, is you've got to do what's right by your family and get where you need to go. Because we weren't sure with gasoline what that trip out was going to look like. Right. It had started raining again, like the day of we talked saturday was our one class yeah and then it was started raining again that afternoon and it wasn't going

to stop it's going to keep raining it rained all night that night and you know it was raining the next morning when we got up and conditions were worsening from what i was understanding outside because the ground was already saturated and that just means that more trees are going to fall yep maybe maybe strong winds had died down yeah more landslides too yep yeah so we got land okay maybe the strong winds are gone but the the ground at this point was was so vulnerable um you know there's no integrity in the soil anymore so that's why with not only with the wind but the weak root systems now because the ground had been it'd been raining for two we are now on the third day of rain and there was flooding everywhere and

the trees were falling it was it was we were even if we wanted to leave we couldn't have originally yeah because we know that you know people went out from our group went out to uh to cut some some of these logs uh that were falling trees that fell over the road just so people could get in and get out and uh it was just us but these roads go did they pass through pepper can go to other residential areas yeah and uh that made a way for these other people that were in the area and so just to touch on what you what you said and what uh what the jordan said you know this is still america and he didn't make anybody stay he didn't cancel either which is fine you know if i want the

opportunity to make a decision on my own if something's going to be open and i want to take advantage of it that'd be my call it's nobody else's fault um for example if we're all preppers right i was ready for this i was prepared for this this is a good chance for me yes i know that i'm going to to a natural disaster zone i understood that as an adult i'm making that decision and it's not nobody's fault but my own to step up and to face that challenge it's no different than anybody else that goes on these television shows these survival shows you know they know they're up to the test they know what they're going to do when they go out there and they're walk around naked in africa or or freezing, you know, in Canada or, you know what I'm saying? They know that the challenge they're facing and they're making that decision on their own to put their own skills to the test. And I appreciated that opportunity. Ryan, JB, you want to add anything else?

I mean, I... Yeah, go ahead, Jasmine. Anything else? pushed through it which was really good and you know some of my preps helped people along the way I was able to get my starlink up and running at a hotel that had um was running off of generators they had no internet there was like 480 plus people that didn't have access to the outside world and were panicking because they couldn't get a hold of their loved ones and that's so amazing that your hot spot could do that it's so cool yeah it was it was amazing like i'm sold on starlink i love it um because i was able to provide those people that that sense of comfort and that normalcy and being able to get out to the outside world. It also helped us get a hotel room. Which was inadvertent.

Right. But it was. I would do it all again. Because we got to help the locals. In the process of it. And we were thanked so much. Because of our presence there. Right. Yeah for sure.

Yeah I don't think that Jasmine's. Giving herself enough credit. At all all for being able to provide that so and for the the listeners out there who don't realize so she drove from washington state 2,500 miles to this campground in saluda north carolina doing that, she provided all the audio-visual components for every single tent at the event so that we as presenters could do our thing. And I was kind of like, well, shoot, if my whole thing hinges like when i teach freeze drying for survival that doesn't it doesn't exactly lend itself to anything else like if i don't have a machine sitting there in front of me which i'm not putting on a plane i can't do a whole lot without a presentation or some sort of My ability to do that was 100% due to the efforts of JB. And for her to be able to do that and also be able to connect us with the outside world.

Yes. I mean, you think about what we were able to accomplish just on that hillside with communication. We had people with chainsaws we had people with food when other people because we were supposed to get food vendors that never showed up well guess what porkchop had all of his stuff there all of a sudden oh jasmine left we got to get her back because i want to make sure that that her um her company gets a shout out because she started a company to be able to do this for rick and jane and you know this is pretty significant really uh for her to be able to do that and keep us going so um it's

beyond the entertainment i believe beyond the entertainment i'm almost perfect so yeah i'm i'm trying to pull it up right now i actually do have it in here i'm just trying to pull it up right now. I actually do have it in here. I'm just trying to find it real quick. Yeah. And she broke down on the way there, had to get a U-Haul and go drive there, then fly back to South Dakota or then take the U-Haul back to South Dakota, then fly in there, then get a rental car from there. And then that's when the rental car broke down on the way out. Yeah. Yeah.

And then she ended up in South Carolina for a while. But for those of you who are interested in reaching out to her as far as her business, it is info at B-I-O-N-D. Sorry, I'm spelling that wrong. B-I-O-N-D-I entertainment.com. Throw the link in the chat, too, if you're – I think you're there. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah, throw the link in the chat for them you're i think you're there perfect yeah yeah throw the link in the chat and i'll put it on the blog too yeah absolutely yeah it was flawless from from my seat as a presenter at the event and from what i was hearing from other folks

i mean it was it was unbelievable the difference just having her there for the presentation and the workers but also yeah yeah yeah go ahead the amount it took off of rick and jane and the entire prepper camp crew it was it was a huge difference from the year before to that year like she did phenomenal yeah so i mean on my classes i think i did pretty well as far as things go most people appreciate my class and and the things that I talk about when it comes to freeze drying and I actually had a couple that reached out to me a couple days after I got home just checking on me just to make sure that I was okay and that I had actually made it home and that's kind of the caliber of the people that attend this event. I had actually made at home. And that's kind of the caliber of the people that attend this event. So I was really impressed with that for the folks that actually showed up. And I was, you know, I was kind of watching. So I, essentially, I was a sitting duck, flying in 2500 miles from home, there's not much I can do. If something goes wrong, I mean, I'm totally at the mercy of whoever's willing to give me a ride until I can get a point to where I can get another ride or a flight out or whatever.

So I was kind of coming at this at a different angle. And so knowing that and being able to be relaxed and just be like, meh, I guess we'll see where this goes. I think that had a different perspective for me. I mean, it allowed me to just kind of sit back and watch these things happen and just be an observer. And some of the things that I really latched on to were the concept of who is actually showing up, who is going to do this. And I made it a point to thank the people who did show up to my presentation. And, you know, I tried to do what I could to go to other folks. And Doug's was an awesome presentation.

First time ever. I mean, did a great job. But I think, you know, in some cases, it makes these are the types of events that separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say, where you start to realize when people are willing to show up and when they're people that I queued in on that did not show up was one of the guys whose main presentation, and he's been a contributor for ages, is about having a group. But one of the things about a group is that you support the group. You know, you stick it out. And I think people don't realize that when things go south some people don't show up yeah and you have to realize that that's going to happen you know you're not going to um and i mean even the people that are there now i wish i could have stayed longer i mean i'm fema certified and ics 100 200 300 700 whatever but that doesn't necessarily mean that um that that yeah we are

out of it you know does that make sense it does completely because when i got home it was almost like like survivor's remorse or something i was like how lucky am i that i'm like over here worrying about like having to you know clean my trailer out and file a claim and get gear together you know and like they're still stuck in it and i'm just like uh it was just kind of surreal um also just you know as far as it goes like with what was going on orchard lake campground fared so well through that whole thing and then uh driving out and seeing what we saw um as far as the down power line some houses just split in half people just stand there like deer in the headlights piles of cars and tires just bulldozed into a pile on the highway and uh you know just knowing that that

kind of happened all around you and then my husband said the half a tank of gas has never lasted so long in the truck you know that we could get to the other end of south carolina where the lines weren't so crazy at the gas stations and everything i mean everything just went so smooth for us that um i really have to say it was just the grace of god i have no other explanation for why um i get it we had the same we made it 150 miles and if it hadn't been for the other preppers because we came in so late we were on e that a few people gave us some gas from their gas tanks and i mean from their gas cans and we made it 150 miles before we actually had to stop we actually for us was stopping after columbia south carolina because it was intermittent

oh yeah gas stations and power okay yeah so let's let's jump into uh some of the gear some of the um like what what uh three pointers on uh stuff that you did right versus stuff you did wrong. Let's start with JB since we got her back. For me, stuff that I did right, I think that my power inverter for the car and the Starlink was a huge blessing. It also helped, you know, not only during the hurricane stuff, it helped when I was stranded in south dakota uh when my car broke down um that was awesome is that your little what did you call it the uh what's it what's the name what's the brand name of it

the jackery right um it wasn't the jackery but i could have used that as an inverter instead i just didn't want to wear the battery down by using it as a pass-through got you um but it's it's just like a little uh 500 watt power inverter that you plug into like the cigarette lighter of your car and it converts it into ac power from dc perfect sweet yeah we used to have those for camping in a van yep i know what you're talking about what else you got you that's your that's your primary or did we just lose you she might have fallen off um that was my my primary um sorry i'm in a loud environment. You're good. And I think the other things that worked out well was, I guess our tents was really nice. us and water because then we didn't have to restrain on local the local uh infrastructure while we were heading out so that was that was a lot but i didn't use too much gear on this trip um because i had to ditch most of it back in my car in south dak. So I was pretty bare bones on this event.

Got you. How about you, Jordan? So for us, I thought I had done a good job at waterproofing our tent, which I have in this part. Oh, but come on, we took it. But I realized, you know where they put the internal little mesh pockets hanging? Uh-huh. I actually have to go back, and I'm taking not liquid silicone, like rubber silicone, and I'm going in, and I'm actually fixing all of those internal stitching seams

because no matter how much you Scotchgard, it is not going to create a full water barrier so we did have an issue of liquid leakage from those internal pocket points so for us it was more of a learning learning curve of okay so now i know i have to take the extra steps here and here which was fine we didn't necessarily get wet, I did because I slept right next to a pocket and it kept dripping off. Nice. Yeah. 2020 all over again. But yeah, but I was thankful for so actually, our biggest like prep positive was actually Ryan Buford and his tarp trick to create us a little bit of cover to be able to get out of the rain. So because of that, we've learned we are going to look into investing into an extra canopy

just so we can now have one for all of us to be able to sit under and to be able to walk out from under our tents. So I enjoyed it, but it was definitely interesting to see what our gear could handle with the rain and what our gear couldn't. So for us, it's now an adjustment of upgrades of what's going to be good for which weather and what's not. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, Doug, how about you? You're in a, you were in a hammock tent and you got an awesome video out. If you guys haven't seen Doug's video, check it out on YouTube, kind of commemorating the experience.

Yeah, as you know, it's taken me years to refine. You know, I'm an avid hiker and camper. This is a passion of mine. I love going out, and I've hiked hiked in every manageable condition and i've slept in every sub-zero temperatures and i got every gear for everything that you can think every season um on on the note of waterproofing uh it's it's important to note that as as awesome as dyneema fiber is um when you're sleeping under it like i have a really expensive dynamo fiber tarp over my my hammock system and it's got doors on the side it actually looks like a floating tent after you put the ridge line up and hang it down you know and secure you know your hammock inside

of this thing um it's like a floating tent almost uh-huh um however that being said when when you're constant when you when you're in that that much rain you find out really that there's no such thing as waterproof anything water will i got a brand new roof in my house and when that storm hit illinois um the first day water found its way in brand new just just just the first day water will find your way because i just got a new run on my roof from the the big storms that came through texas earlier this year yeah water will find a way if there's enough of it um that being said uh for my backpack you know i had z packs it's a very expensive backpack it's also waterproof and all my stuff i kept inside my my my backpack was all dry the reason why i i got wet wasn't because of my setup so much it was i

i uh my hammock straps when they got when i hung them up originally i didn't take into account the sag that the over time with maybe the rain in the ground. Or the trees just moving, yeah. Trees moving, you know, when I was bouncing. Because when that wind kicked in, even though me and Ryan was sleeping on the side of that mountain, the trees are tall, right? We were latched into tall trees. And they were swaying. And when trees, two trees are swaying, you're like a yo-yo up and down, up and down. Yeah, yeah. two trees are swaying you're like you're like a yo-yo up and down yeah so you imagine what this would do to a person like i'm bopping up and down in this thing in the process of coming down my

straps begin to stretch over time okay and and and ryan saw my system i'm inside of this cocoon and basically a cocoon is a large insulated banana type thing with a zipper. So my hammock is inside of this thing, and you crawl into your hammock, and you zip it up, and it's insulated all around you. Well, the bottom was starting to sag over time, and the water was coming down off the mountain and lightly touching the bottom of my cocoon. So that insulation was soaking up all that water on meantime on the outside i'm a hot sleeper so my heat is rising up making the top or the the underside of my my tarp uh it's condensating now because the rain is cooler yeah the rain is cooler the air is cooler

than my body heat is putting off and so every time a rain or something would drop on top of my tarp and things were falling from the trees, that water from the condensation would splash down on top. So I'm getting rain coming up, soaking up from the ground from the bottom, and I'm collecting splats of moisture over time across the top. So that's how i got wet wasn't my gear wasn't faulty so much as it was i didn't prepare good enough and keep my straps a little bit higher and tighter off the ground and me and ryan was kind of looking at the you know the next night and um he said man i would let you a little bit tighter because i don't like i like with a little bit of sag in it because i like to sleep almost like in the shape of a banana instead of laying straight across like a late at least you you can lay a little bit on your side if you've got enough

sag you can't do that so much if it's pulled tight at least i can't because i'm so long um another thing that uh i think i would i would love to have had a system like what jb had with the starling she saved my tail uh not being able to communicate my family yeah um they were worried about me my mom about me. My mom was freaking out. My mom was freaking out too, yeah. It's like, I'm 52, mom. I know. I got this, I got this.

But it never goes away. Yeah. Yeah, and JB saved me, and I was able to reach out. Not only did she save me in that regard, but I was really worried that, like Ryan was saying, the visuals for what I teach is very, very important. And so when I walk into my classroom and I saw that all that stuff was set, I had, there's no power. But she managed to give me power.

Right. Whatever she did. Right. I know. Miracle worker. She's freaking awesome. And I had these televisions to go off. co-worker she's freaking awesome and i had these these these televisions to go off these power i was able to use my uh my powerpoint presentation with my clicker and my microphone and it was

awesome and she really she saved my tail in in more than one way and and i i didn't get to thank her properly um i've i've said it a couple times i couldn't i can't say enough can't put in the words how much i appreciate her and everything that she's done. She saved all of us out there. And then I wish I would have taken some waterproof boots. I mean, the boots that I had are waterproof, but they're like the ones that go like ankle, like a little bit – they cover your ankle. I would have liked to have something taller, like what Steve was wearing, just kind of midway up my shin or my calf a little bit. And that would have made a difference yeah um I wear a solo boots and I have to give them a shout out because my feet

were dry all weekend I made sure I didn't go you know knee deep on anything um but uh yeah my my feet stayed dry also um I had just gone and gotten christian a new pair of boots just a walmart special because you know at that age their feet are just growing like crazy um but those stayed dry as well all weekend so there is you gotta have boots guys you've got what size do you wear um I wear like a size 8. Damn. I know, I'm short, but I have big feet. I'm trying to find a good waterproof shoe that is a size 5 in women's or a 3 in children's. Yeah, you got to buy like a boys.

Yeah. I do, but it's so hard to find something with the support. That's quality. Right. It's hard. So I figured I'd ask you, cause you and I are the same height. I wouldn't have imagined your feet were a bit bigger.

I know I'm short, but I have big feet. Yeah. My mom always like, was like, you're going to be tall or you're going to be a short little shit with big feet. So I got to throw,

okay. So Jasmine, Jasmine is putting here in the chat that it was Ken and a chin. Yeah. I don't know if that's like Ken and Barbie kind of a thing. No, no, no. Maybe, actually. They probably wouldn't decide that.

Ken and chin. Yep. Ken might crack the joke. Chen would not. Chen would be like, nah, nah. Well, I'm going to crack any joke I can grab a hold of. So if I see a zing, I'm going to snatch it up and run with it. You guys know me like that.

Oh, it's not like I didn't sabotage you at Prepper Camp or anything. Oh, yeah, yeah. You can talk about that all you want to. You know, I sewed the hood with the eyes and the face still on it. Did you? Yeah. I ended up rolling that damn thing up, the one that you sabotaged my poster my my banner i rolled it up in there forgot that it was even there so it's either like two days before i get

it off for those of you who don't know sarah and her family had googly eyes and mustaches and i they she even stuck them on the back side of my shorts and you know what's funny is i forgot they were on there until later in the evening. Yeah, I was sabotaging everything. I got the golf carts. We got Doug's poster. Yeah, it was. They got my posters too, actually.

So the boys did. And then they got the back of one of my little capes, which it sold. And I told them, oh, I forgot this was completely on hit there and they left it on there and then i had forgotten as a joke sarah had put them on the backside of my shorts and i walked around with googly eyes and a mustache a handlebar mustache on my tushy for the rest of the day i completely forgot it it. We were so strong. Yeah, it was really a wild experience. She kept wondering why I was pinching her cheek. She's like, what are you doing?

It was good. Maybe I'll put some of those pictures up in the blog. Oh, no. You have the slow-mo, don't you? Uh-uh. I'm not going to name who took that footage because his wife might get super angry. So, oh, it's nobody here. It's nobody here.

So, okay. So, here, Brock always gives me a hard time about bringing our go bags because he's like, we're in the trailer. What do we need to bring our go bags for? I'm like, what if we had to walk, right? So, we always bring our go bags. Guess what was in our go bags for blah blah i'm like what if we had to walk right so we always bring our go bags guess what was in our go bags hand saws and so we had the hand saws there yeah we didn't have a chainsaw which is now on our road trip list but having those hand saws and the hatchet was a game

changer so the go bags came in handy even in the trailer and the hand saws um my family's ability to um adapt and overcome and work with each other and not get hot with each other and just stick together no matter what always a game changer oh i mean every day that's a game changer but when you're in a high stress situation like that eventually one person's gonna go down in stress and when everybody else is there right just scoop them up so yeah y'all handled it in a very small space too on top of it to the point that we are now going to in the future and I nearly brought it is going to be bringing my indoor buddy heater yeah as yes i understand it can make the tent hot but being able to dry things out even our clothes right once the inside of the trailer got like toasted you know there was no coming back from

that it was just wet and wet and so having that right because once everything gets damp it's just hard to get anything dry and like um like doug said that wet smell you know how you're sleeping in wash think yeah right i actually had to wash all of our clothing anything that was wet yeah twice and then both times with vinegar the second time on heat wash just to get the smell out yeah Yeah. And then in the future, we're never going to take another road trip without a chainsaw. We have them.

There was no sense in us not having it available. So a chainsaw is definitely going in there. And then two five-gallon tanks of gasoline will also be on hand. The other option is to add in a secondary tank to Brock's truck, but we'll probably just go with two of the five gals we had extra propane but we didn't actually have um extra gasoline

so that would have been a really good thing and and now so those are kind of like the tips we we picked up um ellen did send me some tips that i think are worth sharing so for her she would have liked if we had better communications devices like if we would have brought our bail fangs so that even when we didn't have our cell phones we would have had a backup it would have also helped us in the car she didn't have any cash on hand she was depending that there was going to be the atm there at prepper camp wow we didn't have any power so no atm right so of course cash small bills always a good idea um rain jacket so she didn't have space to pack a lot of stuff just like ryan she was flying in from another country

so there was only only so much space for stuff so um she said she bought ponchos but the ponchos just they didn't last and she had only so many hoodies and they just got soaked um a topper for the cot or the cat was just kind of hard and so that's you know something that she would add to it wet wipes i really like the wet wipes idea me and ellen took the last like lukewarm shower on friday night at like you know 12 at night yeah i got the cold shower it was kind of lukewarm and then got freezing that pardon i i don't know if you put your podcast as explicit i do apologize but as in the marine corps we called it a hoe bath wet wipes were there for a reason right and we brought wet wipes luckily because after a cold shower i did not want to do that

again no that was no and it would have been really nice to have some wet wipes so that um the okay um so the comms again and then one of her other big tips was um ask for help when you need it instead of being stubborn and trying to just bullhead your way through something but you know instead of asking for help and being miserable when you could clearly ask for help right there and uh you know people would be there to help you so um you know we had to do the same thing my husband it was like i don't know how we're gonna get this trailer out of here um he was freaking out and i was like you know what we're gonna do we're in a community of preppers we're gonna get help you know so uh yeah never be ashamed to ask for help that's why we're

a community that's why we're all here for each other and so that was one of the things that i had told her you know we're always here for you so please don't ever you know not don't hesitate to ask for help don't feel ashamed don't let your pride get in the way so yeah so those are my list um who hasn't gone yet did you go ryan you're like the gear man yeah no i didn't go i think my gear really held up um yeah and surprisingly well for for what it was i i haven't really invested a lot of money i mean the stuff that doug's got on his hammock setup is just unreal and for the cost or for for the price, you better stay dry kind of thing. But mine did surprisingly well.

Some of the other things that I brought along that proved to be effective, I had a Zippo hand warmer, like a USB rechargeable hand warmer that doubles as a power bank. rechargeable hand usb rechargeable hand warmer that doubles as a power bank and that actually was uh something that was useful because i found that in my um in my poncho once i got wet i was a little cold so having that as an alternative heat source inside um just kind of kept me from getting uncomfortable yeah um and i also um i don't know if I showed you that or not. I think I might have shown Jordan. But it's called a Hyper Ice Venom Go. It's basically a heat.

It's a USB rechargeable heating device. That you can stick on your body. I think that's the one you showed us. Yeah. And it also vibrates too. That's right. You did show us because we were laughing at you. What was Yeah, and it also vibrates, too. That's right. You did show us because we were laughing at you. What was it called, Brian?

It's called a Hyper Ice Venom Go. Okay. It's designed to be able to help with sport injuries for heating and massage. I've been doing a lot of heavy lifting and it's kind of one of those things where it's like, well, it works as a heat, but it's also a massager as well. And that was kind of nice to be able to help a couple of times, whether it was heat or the massage side. The one thing that I did find that were failures of mine were, and one more thing that actually did do well

because so like i can't really take a hoe bath because you know because you're not a hoe right but um i did pack some non like it's a clean it's a cleanser that's designed for men and it's basically a pits and privates kind of wash okay uh but it's like a loomy but it's like the manva or whatever it's called man man manny or whatever right yeah it's it's something similar to that and i just put that on my with my chemicals on my carry-on bag um and that was actually something that i i hadn't used in the past because usually i'll just steal soap soap from the hotel and then bring it to Prepper Camp and I'm good for the week. But I had a feeling that we might have water issues, so I brought that stuff along and that really served me well. Yeah, that was smart.

The cash was a big deal, so I'm glad Ellen brought that up because I brought a couple hundred bucks and my intention was to really support the vendors that did show up but once i realized how bad this was i wound up pulling back and rationing what i was planning to spend at the vendor booths because i was really concerned that we wouldn't be able to get fuel on the way out without cash um yep so that was something where it was like well i i i had to kind of pivot there and i'm glad i grabbed cash but i don't think i grabbed enough so you know in the future i'll probably rat hole a little bit extra to bring along yeah oh and all i think i think gear wise i did well we brought a good. We always had a good clutch of cash. We never really switched over to using cards. And so when we finally did switch over to using cards more,

it's just so foreign to us, so we always carry a good grip. But on the note of the vendors situation, guys, I have way overstocked my books right now. So I'm having my whole series on sale for just 100 bucks. So if you guys want to go out and grab some of my books, I got them on sale right now. Speaking of which, Sarah, I meant to catch you before you left on Sunday and I didn't get to. I want to buy the Virgis book to finish up my series. I don't have that one. So when you get a chance later, holler at me.

Okay. Yeah. Or just like like i say you can jump over to my website i've got my store there and uh i doug and i actually worked on a lot of uh you know my covers and everything before we left so these are the original covers this is the last print of my original covers so if you want them you better get them now um i got them on sale for just 100 bucks over there at the store just because, needless to say, we didn't sell too many books in the rain, but we did have a blast with all our friends. And the classes went fantastic on Sunday.

So no regrets at all, but definitely have some extra books if you guys want to pick those up. You know what? Something I am going to mention for the vendor area is we were not opposed to barter and trade-in and that i did a lot of barter and me too that i went home with a uh half of a pork belly that i cut that up in multiple pieces like it would have been perfect for bacon but i just don't have the time to cure it yeah i have a good slab of pork belly in my freezer cut up into sections for different meals i made trades i actually got a um um the dental extraction kit and uh tooth cleaning kit i've been looking for one of those that are affordable price for days and so yeah nobody was really

opposed to trading this year right they'll be at um here in myrtle beach next weekend so i had already told her when she came in her and dave you know dave and his wife that i would be david and his wife that i would be coming in to purchase some things i just unfortunately that was just a chaotic weekend weekend. So luckily they travel a lot of the gun shows and a lot of the prepper conventions. So guys, final thoughts before we wrap it up. I am going to do a changing earth news tonight just because there is too much good stuff. You guys are welcome to stick around or sign off. Totally up to you.

I'd love to hear any final thoughts that you have or anything like that. If we just want to go around the circle again, one more time. Yeah. I was just going to say that it would be really nice if, if, if FEMA would stop interfering in the help that is trying to go in there. Amen. That's a whole,

whole other issue right there. The government, every, every, every, every agency in this government right now is doing the inverse of what it was designed to do. Every single one of them. And it's

truly sad. But right now we got a lot of people, and I'm watching videos all the time that's going up because Starlink, it's the only reason why we're able to see anything at all coming out of that area. Which they didn't want in there, right.

Which Elon, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they don't want anything. You know, they're just, and now that the waters are starting to recede, they're finding bodies in trees, like in treetops that were previously in the water. Bodies, you know, it's just, and people are trying to get in there and help, and they're being threatened with arrest, you know, so. One, I heard a story about a guy who um flew in in the helicopter his son was in the helicopter he flew this woman out

um they told him he was grounded he had to leave his son behind um they told him he had to ground it he's like i'm going back for my son they're like if you go back in the air we're going to arrest you when he got back with his son, they arrested him. I saw where North Carolina police in certain areas are telling FEMA if they choose to interfere and prevent aid or rescue, they will be arrested. Because there are so many times where I have seen where people have came in and were turned away and told to be taken to fema and fema now are just taking food and funds from people and holding it they're not giving it to people they're holding it yeah and how the heck are people supposed to take 750 dollars from the government 750 dollars which is a spit in the face. Right, which blows my mind because the immigrants who have came in from the border are getting $1,500 a month just in food benefits. That's not including housing, food, and everything else.

Right, because all of the funds were blown on all these illegal immigrants that we can't give aid to our own people. And now FEMA is trying to interfere to update their stocks yeah it's it's absurd but i'm glad to see north carolina sheriffs are now stepping up and they will be arrested out of there yeah um also on my home page of the website mercury one glenn becks um you know his broadcasting program they are like just getting out of Hawaii right now. They've been in there helping that long. 100% of what you donate to Mercury One goes to relief efforts.

They've been working to get the internet hooked up with Elon. They've been on the ground from moment one. If you watch Glenn at all, you'll see that what's going on there. They do 100% of what you donate goes to those people and goes into those relief efforts so it's somebody you can actually trust because they're that's the other thing um is who you can actually trust uh with this well grindstone ministries is also another one i saw a video where they're hiking in directly

and giving it to the residents directly so grindstone ministries are another one of those um yeah um i was also talking to rick um you know samaritan's purse is good samaritan's purse so that's another one and then send it to the churches or to tyron t-r-y-o-n equestrian center they're uh distributing and really helping doing a lot there so there's a whole bunch of places you can go where where helps actually going to get to those people and you know we talk a lot on the podcast you cannot depend on the government in these situations. It is people that are going to help people, and they need to get the heck out of the way and let that happen.

So amen, Doug. Thank you for bringing that up. No problem. You also have another announcement. Let's just kill that right now. Go ahead. Sure. Well, because we're talking about FEMA fema and how fema has actually

been instigating and inflaming disasters i mean you're actually making the system worse um i'm wanting to put on the next show i'm going to be putting out uh tuesday we'll be talking quite a bit about fema and uh you know i've been brainstorming for the past uh i don't know probably close to a year now thinking heavily heavily about taking on another voice on my podcast, Rising Republic. And I've been tinkering and playing around with the idea with it. You know, and I'm like, I really want somebody. I'm okay. I'm uncomfortable with talking by myself.

But, I mean, the dynamics I have with just having a second voice on the show. Yeah, it's so nice. Right, and balancing ideas and dialogue. I love that. And I needed somebody that I could have a really good chemistry with and just talk and had to be somebody that I enjoyed being around and talking to and somebody with like thoughts and somebody that's cut from the same fabric that I'm cut from. And I've been thinking about this for a while, and I could never really know who to pick or who to even pitch the offer to. And I asked a couple people here recently,

and two different people threw the same name out at me. And I never even considered it. And it's surprising to me because I really didn't know this person had already had experience podcasting. The person's already got the voice for it. I spent time with this person already and I'm happy to say

right here on your podcast, Sarah, that Ryan Buford will be joining me on The Rising Republic. Yay! There we go. I'm stoked. You guys will be great. It's TJ and yuri what are you gonna do see it was meant to be the voices it was meant to be dynamic duo

yeah it'll be interesting well we're gonna rock and rock this thing see what happens yeah i'm glad i think you guys will really play well. I think that, you know, Ryan has a much more holistic view, and you've been in every trench of the government slime that there is. So I think it'll be a great show, a great pick. Good job. I think it's going to be a really good yin-yang kind of a thing from two different perspectives, really. We view things the same way but but

from different angles right exactly that's that's what i mean um that you'll have unique views to really bounce with each other yet that cohesiveness that really works and like i say it's tj and yuri the tj and yuri show i'm just giving you t. and Yuri show. It's like a sitcom. What are we going to do tonight, T.J.? Whatever you want to do, Yuri. We're going to have to have a T.J. and Yuri segment. Maybe a little commercial. Well, Sarah's going to have to write some lines out for us because, you know.

Ryan's got to have lines. Yeah, Ryan does better reading. It's just not quite as organic yeah yeah you just can't just pull out the russian out of nowhere yeah exactly um yeah no problem we'll we'll figure it out we're also gonna do uh another family feud episode soon so it's gonna be uh i think i'm gonna do virgis as family versus the tj family so i'll get you um up to speed on that one ryan and uh i can't give you lines for that one you're gonna have to you're gonna have to wing that one try and make it up all right yeah try and wing it yep so all righty um did we cover

everything um any more final thoughts from any of the ladies r Ryan? I just want to say one thing. You know, I have absolutely no reservations for having gone. And, you know, I wouldn't have done it differently. I think, you know, I don't know what kind of background the listeners are from or the people who attended the event, whether they were speakers or, you know, people who were just interested. whether they were speakers or people who were just interested. But I have to say, after having observed what I observed at that event, even though we were going through something that was really absolutely chaotic, there was still something there. There was a presence there that protected us.

And I think in a lot of ways that we were in that bubble with some of the best people that we could have been surrounded with and for that to happen the way it did when it did this year is as up in the air as things really were um i i really wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else during something like this. And yeah, like Doug said earlier, we chose to go to this event knowing full well what we were getting ourselves into, but I wouldn't have done that with some of my own family members,

to be completely honest with you. So I think that really we were protected and having that high ground really was a significant component to our own survival and our ability to get out and and get by during that event so i i think somebody was watching out for us really absolutely i agree i i'm gonna segue on that is ryan's 100 correct. If I am going to be in any extreme situation like we were, I am thankful that I was around other preppers and like-minded individuals that it was one of those situations that truthfully other people were probably freaking out and stressing about that it it took a lot of that little bit of stress that i may have had and just washed it away yeah it was nice to be at ease knowing that i'm around like it like-minded individuals and and like like you said we had one situation where I believe God, I mean, honestly, with all the prayers we had and the high ground that God was there for us.

Because Willow herself was in a situation where she woke up, something told her to move, and she moved. And not even maybe two hours later, Doug heard a tree fall, and it was the top of two trees fell where her tent would have been. And that was the only place in that entire campground in which a tree fell, which right there tells you we were protected. We were safe. Um, which I mean, it's terrifying. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to underplay it, but honestly, if I'm going to be in any sort of catastrophic situation or emergency or SHTF, I think we were honestly in the best position because we had other preppers, other like-minded individuals. And I can tell you this, Ryan now has me at a run for my money because he is now my old man's man crush for his prepper skills on his lack of supplies and how well he does it and how manly he manly he is when he does it so ryan you and i

have you're now my competition at what i can be as a prepper woman because man you've got my old man crushing on you i'm'm going to leave that alone. If anything, but it's a positive, though. When you go into a situation where our prepper life skills are very different between myself and my partner. He grew up very inner city. I grew up very country. So, Ryan, I don't mean it as a threat. It's honestly probably the biggest compliment I can give because, I mean, that goes to show. And Ryan's ability to just, like, stay cool, too.

Like, in the face of, you know, even when, you know, there's things going on. If he doesn't want to hear about it, if he's getting upset about something, you'll just see Ryan walk away. That's his way of being like, yeah, F this. I am not going to be a part of this anymore. So, yeah, phenomenal. But it was just his ability to prep and to camp and to hold everything together with such amazing composure, which is such an amazing skill. I lost my composure for a moment god bless well i understand i was calm the whole time but the whole time i'm watching ryan i'm like

i want to be that cool right yeah but it was the boys like lost the saws i'm like are you serious we're finally ready to go i'm like yeah i heard there was a saw still stuck in some of the trees no no we got them all we got my my husband had actually picked them up so yeah um we did pretty good but yeah i lost it for a minute the saw the saw stuck in the trees that wasn't morgan's fault was it no no morgan was an animal though you should have totally said yes pork chop pork chop was like oh you don't need that hatchet there honey and i'm like all right whatever and then morgan's like here hold my beer like that guy was so awesome he just went right through it in ziplocks he went through this log had to be like at least six inches thick right at the diameter okay it was like a good size log i'm not kidding and he just starts going at he was like i was raised country to begin

with and he just starts wedging it out dude it was gone in like 20 minutes i was like what okay you're awesome you're definitely welcome yeah he's definitely in so yeah that was good my so moments with him and his little ziplocs because i told him we need to get him rain boots and he was like nah nah i'm going you know what every everything we go through as preppers are is a learning experience so hopefully that is now his wake-up call of next year of having either waterproof hiking shoes, boots, or rain glosses. Oh, I don't know. I had a ball watching Doug tiptoe across the field all afterwards because his boots were all wrecked and he could only do the man tiptoe dance. Honestly, though, even my rain

glosses were so wet at the pavilion when I was cooking breakfast or anytime I was at the pavilion I was barefooted just because the rain kept getting in my shoes yeah yeah I completely understand that comfy comfy need some waiters all right we almost brought some Christopher actually pulled some out and left them in the back of his sword oh no you probably would have been filled up but i want to i want to um throw in there that like i don't think we should have done this event any different than what we did like what rick and us uh rick and jane did because like if we canceled it it would have put all those people on the road in really dangerous situations Like if we canceled it, it would have put all those people on the road in really dangerous situations and turning those people. And it kept all the newbies, you know, distracted and preoccupied and safe in the location that we were at.

Absolutely. We were where we needed to be. Yeah. And I agree with that, JB. Like there was no way we were going to start moving trailers till that sunday i mean we needed time to assess what was going on if you have people just start freaking out even me if i would have tried to leave out on saturday it could have just been a way bigger mess because at least you know sunday was still early enough that it wasn't like really locked down but um long enough that they already had some of it cleared and stuff

where we only had to do a little bit of work to be able to really start getting campers out of there and whatnot. So I think it would have been. And I don't think we realized how bad it was blocked in until Friday morning. Dave Jones said he tried to go down the mountain to get supplies and then that's when they realized down both sides was blocked and then that's when our boys went out and started clearing things yeah yeah friday was definitely the worst for flooding um it was a mess like that that second river almost came up over the top and everything yeah i saw some of those rivers coming through like like it was like a brand new river going right

through ashville because it took me about four hours for a 30 minute you know drive yeah and it was pretty intense and honestly i got out yeah i'm surprised you did too i heard stories like people on the third floor apartment heading to get roof rescued and like all their cats drowned because they couldn't get the cats out um could barely get the person out so yeah just really a mess so amen guys um i'm so glad to have spent this experience with you and uh of course, you're all family to me now. And lord that uh you know every he took care of us there everybody made it out safe and um it was great to spend it with you likewise all right so you guys want to stick around for changing earth news or are you gonna bust out i'm gonna go eat man it's uh it's seven o'clock here all right get it on thanks doug for coming Earth news? Are you going to bust out? I'm going to go eat, man. It's

7 o'clock here. Alright, get it on. Thanks, Doug, for coming on. We'll see you next week. See ya. Bye. Anybody else? What are you guys doing? I'm sticking around. You're sticking around? Okay. I'm kind of hanging around until

I'm told I have to go. Okay. I'll hang out a little longer, too. Alright, cool. Alrighty, so I'm going to hanging around until I'm told I have to go. Okay. I'll hang out a little longer too. All right, cool. All righty. So I'm going to play some Changing Earth weather news compliments of our intrepid community. Dream. Survive. Thrive.

This is Changing Earth News. Alrighty, Changing Earth News. So this week we had an X7 and X9 solar flares that came off the sun. Luckily, they were both short-duration events. They thought it was going to have a bigger impact, but they look pretty weak coming in, which is surprising because we've had some M classes that have really, really affected our planet.

So I was surprised by that. Plus, it's going to be like the 1-2 whammy punch because the X7 was so slow in coming in. But it looks pretty good. They should be hitting tonight. So we're going to know by the morning kind of uh what systems were affected um last week obviously hurricane helene hit florida hit georgia hit uh north

carolina tennessee um the hurricane is headed for florida as of right now and then the second one is swooping up towards the uk we'll talk about that in a minute. Nigeria braced for more flooding. The Cameroon Dam had to release water. So 30 people actually died in that event. They had another million people affected by flooding over there. They have not been able to catch a break. It is literally the greening of the Sahara over there. Ethiopia, 79,000 people have been affected by flooding on the Ono River.

And then in Nepal, pretty much the same day that Helene was hitting North Carolina, Nepal was getting hit by catastrophic flooding as well. Over 100 people were killed in the event on that day. They're still doing pickup and rescues from that event as well. Over 100 people were killed in the event on that day. They're still doing pickup and rescues from that event as well. On September 30th, there was 309 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger, biggest of which was a 5.9 in the North Pacific Ocean near Kamchatka. That's up in Russia. Philippines had a 5.1 earthquake hit Porosebu. uh 4.2 earthquake in aromas california that's

southern california they've been taking a lot of activity over and over again we're definitely keeping eyes on california right now vancouver bc and up you guys up there in washington also the cascadia you need to be on high alert with what's going on with the activity Vancouver Vancouver BC was hit with their first extreme snowstorm on September 30th and then on October 1st there was 370 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger biggest of which was a 6.6 in Tonga in the South Pacific Ocean and giant dust storm hit Moscow. Southern Greece wildfires left two people dead. And northern China had its first snowstorm that trapped hundreds of cars and people.

Oh. On October 2nd of 2024, there was 361 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger, biggest of which was a 5.5 in the South Mid-Atlantic Ridge. There was a 3.9 earthquake that hit Southern California. It was downgraded to a 3.1. And then Nepal was hit again with more rain, more storms coming in. It's really a bad situation going on over there. Hundreds missing at this time.

70 mile an hour winds came in, caused a huge dust storm up in Pullman, Washington. Thank you, Ryan, for giving me the heads up on that one. I specifically went and found it because of you. Droughts in Spainain they're figuring out that instead of growing grapes or of her raisins and wine they're now switching over to pistachios instead they're having a boom crop so it just goes to show you know adapt and overcome whatever when life gives you lemons you make lemonade and if it's suddenly turned into a different area we've got to be agile to be able to do that so that was my good my my happy news for the night um the line

fire in san bernardino has grown again and then on october 3rd there was 319 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger biggest which was a 5.4 in papua new gu in the South Pacific Ocean. 4.4 hit Southern California. In Iran and Bihar, there's flooding due to all the water that was coming down in Nepal. They had to do water releases, which is now flooding Iran. Typhoon Kraython hit Taiwan. They were really worried about that being a gigantic smack onto Taiwan. It did weaken, thankfully, a little bit before it came in however two people have died in that event and it's left a trail of destruction they've been

hit a lot lately by um cyclones so um romania their agricultural sector has been pretty much devastated by drought over there so we're always looking at like the feast and famine. We have these huge rain events in some areas. Some areas are still drought stricken out. It's getting more and more extreme. October 4th, 2024, there was 361 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger, biggest of which was a 5.3 in the Southeast Pacific rise. Flooding in West and Central Africa

has left 1,500 people dead now, 4 million people affected, and 1 million of those are just in Nigeria alone. There was severe flooding in Bosnia that killed 15 people. They're still searching for survivors. Herzegovina was also affected. They're literally having to dig things out of the mud. We pretty much know what that looks like. In Malawi, Southeast Africa, they are delivering food aid to 5 million people that are stricken by drought. So the southeastern end of Africa is just really getting hit by this drought, while the north is just receiving all that water. It's too bad we can't spread it out.

Norway had a freezing storm uh intense snow storm just really put everything in a standstill it wasn't just uh you know winter wonderland anymore it was pretty much a chilly nightmare on october 5th of 2024 there was 306 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger biggest of which was a 5.7 in Wellington, New Zealand. There was a 3.6 earthquake in Death Valley. Mount Adams in Washington is having earthquakes 180 times the normal rate of earthquakes there. So it's definitely eyes on that volcano. We know that the volcano counts up.

That still hasn't changed even to this day. Huge dust storm hit gansu china the valley fire in boise idaho grew to 3 500 acres they were issuing code red evacuation alerts for that fire in bolivians in bolivia they are racing to save the belongings as wildfires burn their homes and there's evacuations for a wildfire burning outside of Moscow as well. Today, October 6th, there has been 342 earthquakes that were 2.0 or bigger, biggest of which was a 5.2 in the South Pacific Ocean near Venatu. There's a 4.0 earthquake in Southern California in the Inland Empire.

Florida is bracing for another impact from Milton. It has been upgraded now to, I believe it's been upgraded now to a hurricane from a tropical storm, but it is forecasted to be a cat three by the time it comes in. And it's pretty much going to hit the same area that was just affected by Helene. So prayers for everybody there. Helene really took them out with the storm surge. Kirk is on track to hit the EU. There's severe drought in Guyana, South Africa, which is leading to a large livestock die off. As far as our volcano numbers, still off the chart. I've never seen 36 erupting volcanoes on our planet in all of the years that i've been recording a volcano it was like a miracle to see 26 not so long ago now we're

looking at 36 week after week after week we actually moved up one as far as minor activity goes we're up to 33 showing minor activity so that's literally 69 volcanoes that are either erupting or showing minor activity right now we also have 22 showing unrest still 91 total same total from two weeks ago but more and more are moving up into that active phase um can't be flag race still on list. We're still watching that super volcano over in Italy and Pele is still on the list as well. As far as wildfires in the United States, we're at a preparedness level of four. We have three new fires, 28 large active fires, 1,131,206 acres actively burning. Two of those fires are contained. Number one on the list is Idaho

with one new fire, 16 current fires, 449,000 acres burning. One of those fires is contained. Number two is Oregon with no new fires, nine current fires, 236,000 acres burning. Number three on the list is Wyoming. Three fires, 114,876 acres. No new fires, but those fires are not contained. Number four is California. No new fires, four total, 45,000 acres burning. One of those fires is contained. And I know they've been making some big progress on those fires. What they need is some cooler weather so there's your changing earth rapid fire news for today it was a long show so uh hopefully you guys got a lot out of it because i didn't really want to put a time frame on today so um it was a harrowing experience, that's for sure. You guys still hanging out there, Ryan, JB?

Yeah, I'm still here. Yeah. So what's going on with Mount Adams? That's right in our backyard. That doesn't sound too great. 180 times, 180 times the normal earthquake rate is going on for that mountain right now. It sounds like a prequel to Mount St mountain hill is over again right yeah it's definitely eyes on that volcano they haven't been talking right near that um i've also been looking at the long valley caldera that's down

below mammoth mountain in california on the california nevada border um but yeah mount adams is definitely definitely making some noise. And I'm serious. I've never seen that many earthquakes or that many volcanoes actively erupting on our planet. I've been recording them for years. And it's just kind of curious, right? Yeah, a lot of motion, a lot of moving parts and weird stuff happening on the weather fronts and and extreme weather fronts it seems like this year especially

yeah with the polar shift they're looking at more extreme high pressures and more extreme low pressures so where those two collide with each other it is uh creating some crazy weather like we just saw you know wow yeah all righty guys jb you want to give a shout out to your company before you go oh i don't need to but we already put you in the chat anyway so uh well it's beyond the entertainment and yeah you guys want to reach out to me who are interested in audio visual services just go to or just email on that info at beyond the entertainment.com and she is beyond the awesome and then ryan we're gonna see you on rising republic that's so cool awesome to have you back on board as a host i was actually missing you

yeah yeah yeah it's about time i get back in the saddle so that'll be good very cool yeah i'm happy to see you guys go ahead jimmy oh i was i was missing him being a host as well right i know i was like yuri and sergey are great but like where's ryan's voice so yeah yeah i've been on a bit of a hiatus getting stuff going here so sometimes it needs to happen you know we gotta we all gotta balance uh you know everything that we're doing with our careers, with what we do with our passions, and then our families and our homesteads and all of everything. It takes a very big balancing act to pull it all off and have happy families. Absolutely.

All righty, guys. Well, hopefully JB is coming down my way soon. I'm going to steal her from you, Ryan.b is coming down my way soon i'm gonna steal her from you ryan she's she's coming down to texas so you know she deserves whatever whatever positive vibes get sent her away so i'm sure she'd be able to do fantastic with that business down in your region too yeah fair fair all right well let's go ahead and get the heck out of here. Thank you guys for coming. It was a great show. Hopefully the audience got a lot out of it because we certainly learned some cool lessons along the way.

Thanks again for coming in. If you guys want to check out the books, grab the books, $100 for the whole series. Never done it before. ChangingNurseSeries.com. I got the blog up there the shirts there you can give money there so just check it out changing earth series.com and thank you guys one more time appreciate you all righty until next time remember dream survive survive thrive yes goodnight everyone

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 Battle for the South Dark Days in Denver

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