2012: The Survival Manual!

2012: The Survival Manual!

2012: The Survival Manual

by Frank Gabriel, the founder of 2012TheSurvivalManual.com
Special thanks to Jack Hutson and Justin T. Moore for the moral support. All contents copyright 2009 by Frank Gabriel. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related les may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. The activities in this book involve the use of tools, resources, and materials that can be dangerous and require training, supervision, and practice in order to be used safely. Your safety is your responsibility, including the proper use of equipment and safety gear and determining whether you have the adequate skill and experience required for an activity. Even though this book has been carefully researched and all efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, the author does not claim that the information expressed within this book is accurate, but rather represent the author"s opinions, being provided solely for informational and educational purposes. The author assumes no responsibility for any injuries suffered or damages or losses incurred during or as a result of following the information presented in this book. The reader is required to carefully study, independently research, and clearly understand all information before taking any action based on this book. The reader assumes full responsibility for the consequences of his or her own actions. Finally, The intention of this book is to inform and educate. This book does not aim to replace medical advice given by your health professional. It is strongly recommended that you consult your doctor or health professional before following any therapeutic advice, especially if you have a pre-existing medical condition.

2012: The Survival Manual! IMPORTANT COPYRIGHT AND LEGAL NOTICE: You do NOT have permission to copy, re-distribute, resell, auction, or otherwise give away copies of 2012: The Survival Manual, no matter what the format is, e-book or physical. International copyright laws apply to ebooks as well. If you attempt to do any of the above methods of distributing this e-book or physical book, you are in violation of international copyright laws and are subject to nes and imprisonment. Copyright infringement is a serious crime with nes starting at $150,000 and up, including potential imprisonment upon conviction. I have embedded unique tracking codes in this book, designed to detect illegal distribution and the download links. Do NOT risk getting yourself in legal trouble by illegally distributing this ebook on le sharing networks and websites. However, you DO have permission to print exactly 1 copy of this book for your own use, or copy the pdf le to your own CD or DVD for a back-up use.

2012: The Survival Manual! Introduction ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 5 10 17 18 22 25 26 34 36 37 38 39 45 46 50 59 61 66 70

Part 1: The Origin of 2012! !

Part 2: Extreme Space Weather !! ! ! 1 - Introduction! ! ! ! ! ! ! 2 - Solar Storms !! ! ! ! ! ! 3 - The Carrington Event of 1859! ! ! 4 - The Threat From Above! ! ! ! 5 - A Crack In Our Armour! ! ! Part 3: A World Without Electricity! ! ! 1 - Introduction! ! ! ! ! ! ! 2 - Personal Impact on Your Life ! ! ! 3 - Timeline of an Urban Meltdown! Part 4: Survival!! ! ! ! ! 1 - Overview! ! ! ! ! 2 - Personal Preparation! ! ! 3 - Your New Home ! ! ! ! 4 - Getaway kits !! ! ! ! 5 - Survivor Mindset! ! ! Part 5: Conclusion! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

2012: The Survival Manual!

! Introduction
! Hello, my name is Frank Gabriel. First of all, I want to thank

you for buying my book. You have invested your money into only thing that is going to matter in the long run: the very survival of you and your loved ones. You have made the right choice.

As an astrophysicist who devoted his entire life to scientic

research of physical eschatology and someone who values personal and professional integrity above all else, I want to assure you that this is not yet another online mumbo-jumbo text about what is going to happen in the year 2012. Too many unscrupulous individuals try to gain the attention of general public by writing just about anything that sounds even remotely plausible (and quite a few things which do not), thus reducing the chance that people like yourself who are genuinely interested in the topic are going to
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2012: The Survival Manual! nd the truthful information which can help them survive possibly the most important event in the history of human civilization. I am disgusted with all the wild speculations about 2012 I have come across so far, both online and ofine. The sheer ammount of disinformation and lies out there is staggering and it seems like no one is willing to present any scientic proof whatsoever, yet everyone still wants you to believe them, no matter what they say.

As I have already stated, I have devoted my whole life to

search for the scientic truth and, as far as the events in the year 2012 go, I believe I have found it. I rst came across the possible evidence of the upcoming events through my personal research in December 2008 - just a month before The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published an alarming document outlining the grim possibilities for an entirely identical scenario. Some of my colleagues soon started publishing the results of their own

2012: The Survival Manual! scientic research on the events that are most likely to unfold in 2012, but it seemed like it was too little, too late - the public consciousness was already ooded with sensationalistic disinformation. Raving madmen preaching about an all-out alien invasions and Hollywood studios combining every doomsday theory known to men into computer-generated blockbuster catalogues of disasters left seemingly no place for the truth.

Even worse, those irresponsible individuals discredited the

very concept of a real threat to humanity lurking in the year 2012. It seems to me that a half of the population dimisses the whole 2012 thing as a bunch of nonsense, while the other half is not willing to listen to the truth of the matter if it does not include at least a lost prophecy or two of Nostradamus, a warning sent to us from Atlantis via ancient Egypt, a cryptic message from ancient astronauts, or something similar. It is saddens me deeply that

2012: The Survival Manual! millions of people are going to lose their lives because of their willing ignorance.

However, I know you have searched for the truth and I also

know that you have worked hard to nd this source of invaluable information. In a way, you have successfully separated the wheat from the chaff. You were also brave enough to decide that you are going to survive and I truly respect you for that. You know you deserve to live and also deserve to save the people you care about. That is also why you deserve real advice, based on real scientic facts, presented by a real scientist.

Buying this book might very easily turn out to be the best

investment you have made in your lifetime. I have put a lot of work and effort into it and I hope you nd it eye-opening. It will give you a proper perspective on the threat to human civilization as we

2012: The Survival Manual! know it and it will ensure you are well-equipped with the essential information you need in order to prepare yourself well.

Yours faithfully, Frank Gabriel

2012: The Survival Manual!

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Everywhere you turn, there is a plethora of wild theories about

the civilization-ending cataclysm in the year 2012. If you have ever asked yourself where all of that had come from and why that year has been chosen as the end year, the answer to both questions is - Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar.

The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating,

vigesimal (base-20) calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. For this reason, it is sometimes known as the Maya (or Mayan) Long Count calendar. The calendar identies a day by counting the number of days passed since a mythical creation date that corresponds to August 11, 3114 BC in the Gregorian calendar that most of us in the Western world use today.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! The Long Count was linear, rather than cyclical, and kept time

roughly in units of 20. For example, 20 days made a uinal. 18 uinals, or 360 days, made a tun. 20 tuns made a katun. 20 katuns, or 144,000 days, made up a baktun. So, the Long Count date of 6.3.2.8.7 represents 6 baktuns, 3 katuns, 2 tuns, 8 uinals and 7 days since the mythical creation. Since the calendar is presented as lasting 5,125 years, the most widely accepted correlations of the end of the thirteenth baktun (or Long Count date 13.0.0.0.0) with the Western Gregorian calendar is either December 21 or December 23, 2012.

The early Mayanist and astronomer Maud Worcester

Makemson had written in 1957 that the completion of a Great Period of 13 baktuns would have been of the utmost signicance to the Maya. The anthropologist Munro S. Edmonson later added that there appears to be a strong likelihood that the eral calendar,

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2012: The Survival Manual! like the year calendar, was motivated by a long-range astronomical prediction, one that made a correct solstical forecast 2,367 years into the future in 355 B.C. In 1966, Michael D. Coe claimed in The Maya that there is a suggestion that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the nal day of the thirteenth baktun. Thus our present universe would be annihilated on December 23, 2012, when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion. These apocalyptic connotations of the birth of the fth age were accepted by several other scholars of Mesoamerican history by the early 1990s.

Always on the lookout for cryptic prophecies to interpret,

esoteric movements quickly accepted the idea of an ancient Mayan doomsday date and started circulating it worldwide. The concept really took off in 1995, when several New Age groups

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2012: The Survival Manual! gathered around Nancy Lieder, a Wisconsin woman claiming that as a girl she was contacted by gray extraterrestrials who allegedly implanted a communications device in her brain. They proclaimed that the planet Earth was going to collide with a large planetary object which they referred to either as Planet X or Nibiru. Initially, they forecasted the collision year to be 2003, but - when nothing happened that year - the event was conveniently moved to 2012.

Since then, the widespread public interest in the year 2012

blossomed, giving birth to countless speculative theories, most of which claimed connection to the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. As a result, people started being more and more willing to listen to shady followers of cryptic prophecies.

I think it was somehow ironic that this time members of the

scientic community actually also tried warning people of the

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2012: The Survival Manual! incoming disastrous events most likely to take place in 2012. We based everything we said on our research and scientic evidence, instead of speculation, but the whole concept was so discredited that not much people were willing to listen, even when presented the scary facts.

To be completely fair, some of the unscientic theories got two

things right. Yes, the threat to humanity is indeed coming from space and yes, it is almost certainly coming in 2012. ! ! However, it is neither a comet that will wipe out all life on the

Earth, nor an unknown planet heading for a gigantic space trafc accident - and certainly not an all-out invasion of an aggressive alien civilization.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Our greatest enemy is the very giver of life and light at the

center of our solar system - the Sun.

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2012: The Survival Manual!

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2012: The Survival Manual!

! Introduction
! Without a warning, the lights go out. An abrupt loss of

electrical power has struck the whole country. Air trafc control goes ofine, medical institutions switch to their emergency diesel generators and as you wait it out at home an enormous aurora dances in the sky above your head.

Hours of extended blackout become days and the power still

does not return. There is no television, newspapers or internet to tell you what is happening. Soon, the diesel driving the hospitals" backup generators runs out and patients start dying.

Water supply runs dry and food stops arriving in supermarkets

because neither the tap water nor the fuel for the delivery trucks can be pumped without electricity. Riots begin soon after that,
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2012: The Survival Manual! shops are ransacked and it is not long before the situation spirals into an unstoppable orgy of violence. Police or armed forces simply cannot do anything signicant to stop the unrests since they are unable to coordinate their efforts: high in the atmosphere, many of the satellites they rely upon for communication and navigation have been reduced to useless oating junk.

Emboldened by the lack of order, countless armed gangs start

roaming with murder, rape and pillage on their mind. Streets are lled with the stench of decaying dead bodies littered about and soot from the blackened burnt-out husks of former landmark buildings.

The civilization as we know it is gone forever.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! The scenario I have just described above is quite different

from a typical 2012 forecast you can nd anywhere else. Unfortunately, it is the most likely one. Forget about Mayas, mega tsunamis, pole reversals, and alien cultures. If just one extraordinarily powerful solar storm hits planet Earth, disrupting its magnetic eld, causing phantom currents in the power lines and damaging the high-voltage transformers beyond repair, it would shatter life as we know it. The technological trappings of our civilization would be wrecked by these superheated, electried gases, catapulted from the Sun with the energy of hundreds of atomic bombs.

Since our reliance on technology in the developed world is so

great, we are the ones who are the most vulnerable to this threat. Should an extreme solar are hit us, it will take up to a decade to fully recover. In fact, it may take months just to reconnect the

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2012: The Survival Manual! country " s essential infrastructure with electricity. Such a catastrophe would cost the United States of America $1 trillion to $2 trillion in the rst year and that would, of course, be just a fraction of global damages.

Essentially, our nation would become an equal of an

underdeveloped third-world country in a matter of minutes.

Again, all it takes is a single powerful solar storm - and

chances are it is coming during the peak of an 11-year solar activity cycle in 2012. Worse yet, it coincides with the presence of an unusually large hole in Earth"s geomagnetic shield.

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2012: The Survival Manual!

! Solar Storms
! Solar storm is a popular term for what is scientically known

as geomagnetic storm. Every such storm begins with a solar are. It is a large explosion in the Sun"s atmosphere that can release as much as 6 x 1025 joules of energy. In comparison, a modern 1-megaton hydrogen bomb has an explosive energy of about 4 x 1015 joules.

Since solar ares affect all layers of the solar atmosphere

(namely, photosphere, corona, and chromosphere), they heat plasma to tens of millions of degrees, accelerate electrons, protons, and heavier ions to near the speed of light and produce radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum to all wavelengths, from radio waves to gamma rays.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Most ares occur in active regions around sunspots (regions

of lower surface temperature believed to form where loops in the sun"s magnetic eld intersect the surface). Flares are powered by the sudden (timescales of minutes to tens of minutes) release of magnetic energy stored in the corona. If a solar are is exceptionally powerful, it can cause coronal mass ejection.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is an ejection of material

from the solar corona. The ejected material is a plasma consisting primarily of electrons and protons (in addition to small quantities of heavier elements such as helium, oxygen, and iron), plus the entraining coronal magnetic eld.

When the ejection reaches the Earth as an interplanetary

coronal mass ejection (ICME), it disrupts the Earth " s magnetosphere, compressing it on the day side and extending the

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2012: The Survival Manual! night-side tail. When the magnetosphere reconnects on the nightside, it creates trillions of watts of power which is directed back toward the Earth"s upper atmosphere. This process can cause particularly strong aurora also known as the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis (in the Northern Hemisphere), and the Southern Lights , or aurora australis (in the Southern Hemisphere).

A strong coronal mass ejection event, along with an

appropriate solar are, can disrupt radio transmissions, disturb operation of radars, threaten astronaut safety, cause power outages (blackouts), and lead to damage to satellites and electrical transmission lines. And that was exactly what happened over a century and a half ago.

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2012: The Survival Manual!

! The Carrington Event of 1859

! The last gigantic solar storm took place on September 1,

1859. Known as the Carrington event (amateur astronomer Richard Carrington observed the solar are that triggered it), this super-storm still tops the scale of solar events that have affected Earth.

Back then, the communications technology was the telegraph

network, while compasses and canny seamanship handled global navigation. As the storm hit, compasses spun uselessly and the telegraph wires in both the United States and Europe spontaneously shorted out, causing numerous res and crashing the telegraph network. The Northern Lights, solar-induced phenomena more closely associated with regions near Earth"s North Pole, were documented as far south as Rome, Havana and
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2012: The Survival Manual! Hawaii, with similar effects at the South Pole. The storm went on for days.

What happened in 1859 was a combination of several solar

events that happened at the same time. If they took place separately they would be somewhat notable scientic event, but together they caused the most potent disruption of Earth"s ionosphere in recorded history.

Essentially, it was the perfect space storm.

! The Threat From Above

! Since it happened back in the 19th century, when our

civilization"s reliance on technology was next to none, the

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2012: The Survival Manual! Carrington Event remained chiey known in scientic circles where solar ares, magnetic storms and other unique solar events are commonly discussed. People outside of the scientic community quickly forgot about the strange days in 1859 and remained largely unaware of the celestial threat lurking so close to our planet.

However, later solar storms have had signicant effects in

modern time:

in May of 1921 another solar storm had such intense power it shocked scientists of the time;

the one that occured in March of 1989 blacked out the entire northeastern Canada"s Hydro-Qubec power grid in

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2012: The Survival Manual! just 92 seconds, leaving millions of people without electricity for up to 9 hours;

the outage in January 1994 of two Canadian telecommunications satellites happened during a period of enhanced energetic electron uxes at geosynchronous orbit, disrupting communications services nationwide; the rst satellite recovered in a few hours, while recovery of the second satellite took six months and cost $50 million to $70 million;

the solar storm in 2003 (the Halloween Storm) caused a massive blackout in the northeastern part of the United States creating $10 billion with damage to electrical systems;

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2012: The Survival Manual! the Federal Aviation Adiministration"s recently implemented GPS-based Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) was disabled for 30 hours during the severe space weather events of October-November 2003;

26 United Airlines ights were diverted to non-polar or lessthan-optimum polar routes during several days of disturbed space weather in January 2005; the ights were diverted to avoid the risk of HF radio blackouts during PCA events.

Therefore problems created by solar storms are not myths

and stories but indeed possibilities based upon ongoing historical events. A contemporary repetition of the 1859 event would be a real global disaster, causing catastrophic social and economic disruptions. With the advent of modern power grids and satellites,

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2012: The Survival Manual! coupled with our increasing dependence on them, much more is at risk.

Modern power grids are so interconnected that a big space

storm - the type expected to occur about once a century - could cause a cascade of failures. Over the years, higher and higher operating voltages have been added to them, escalating our vulnerability to geomagnetic storms.

In a way, we have been unknowingly building an infrastructure

that is acting more and more like a big antenna for extreme space weather outbursts. Large currents circulate in the network, coming up from the earth through ground connections at large transformers. Even though these are needed for safety reasons, the ground connections provide entry paths for charges that could seriously disrupt the grid.

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2012: The Survival Manual!

Also, another problem is that ultra-high voltage transformers

become more nicky as energy demands are greater. Around 50 percent already can"t handle the current they are designed for. A little extra current coming in at odd times can easily slip them over the edge. The ultra high-voltage transformers, especially the 500,000- and 700,000-kilovolt ones, are particularly vulnerable. The United States uses more of these than anyone else, but China is trying to implement some million-kilovolt transformers.

When these transformers blow, they cannot be xed in the

eld - and often cannot be xed at all. At the moment of this writing, there is a one- to three-year lag time between placing an order and getting a new one. Other lightly damaged electrical equipment could take months to x in such a situation. Unlike hurricanes or oods, the damage caused by solar storms is to

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2012: The Survival Manual! underlying systems and not obvious in terms of visible devastation.

A study from the National Academy of Sciences, released in

January 2009, points out that the effects of a strong geomagnetic storm on the power grid would literally sweep across the United States, cutting power to more than 130 million people in an instant.

Widespread power outage of those gigantic proportions would

also heavily affect other vital systems. The aforementioned study states that impacts would be felt on interdependent infrastructures with, for example, potable water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; immediate or eventual loss of heating/air

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2012: The Survival Manual! conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, transportation, fuel resupply and so on.

In effect, our civilization would be instantly transported to a

world without electricity. The only thing that stands between us and the total collapse of the power grid is a single satellite.

Power grid operators now rely on one satellite called ACE,

which sits about a million miles out from Earth in what"s called the gravity well, the balancing point between Sun and Earth. ACE provides about 15 to 45 minutes of head-up to power plant operators if something is coming in. Even though it was designed to run for only ve years, it"s 11 years old now and there are no plans to replace it, so there goes our early warning capability.

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2012: The Survival Manual!

! A Crack In Our Armour

! Earth " s magnetic eld acts as a shield against the

bombardment of particles continuously streaming from the sun. Because the solar particles (ions and electrons) are electrically charged, they feel magnetic forces and most are deected by our planet"s magnetic eld.

However, our magnetic eld is a leaky shield and the number

of particles breaching this shield depends on the orientation of the Sun"s magnetic eld. It had been thought that when the Sun"s magnetic eld is aligned with that of the Earth, the door is shut and that few if any solar particles enter Earth"s magnetic shield. The door was thought to open up when the solar magnetic eld direction points opposite to Earth"s eld, leading to more solar particles inside the shield.
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2012: The Survival Manual!

In May 2008 NASA"s THEMIS (Time History of Events and

Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) mission demonstrated that the opposite is actually true. The mission discovered that twenty times more solar particles cross the Earth"s leaky magnetic shield when the Sun"s magnetic eld is aligned with that of the Earth compared to when the two magnetic elds are oppositely directed.

The Sun"s magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of its 11year sunspot cycle and the last time it happened was back in 2001. The next ip is going to happen in 2012, pointing the Sun"s polarity exactly the way we don"t want it to in terms of evading Earth"s magnetic eld. Since it"s also a period maximum solar activity, it essentially paves the way for the perfect storm threatening the turn the Earth into a world without electricity.

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2012: The Survival Manual!

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2012: The Survival Manual!

! Introduction
! As a very mild encouragement, it should be noted that

electrical power has only been a common household item in the last 50 or so years. Before that, people have survived for ages - so a lack of electricity for any duration of time is something that can denitely be overcome. As human beings, we have lived and prospered for many centuries prior to the lifetime of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), the Serbian-American electrical engineer who is often referred to as the father of commercial electricity.

Even though a cataclysmic global loss of electrical power

would be a major setback for our civilization and a denite end to our contemporary way of life, we are more than capable of succesfully surviving in such a world - if we are well prepared for such an event.
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2012: The Survival Manual!

! Personal Impact on Your Life

! One cannot imagine the real impact of such a calamity if he or

she doesn"t take into account the real impact of the loss of electrical power on his or her own life.

Please take a moment to look at the following list of some

everyday commodities which would not be available to you in a world without electricity and try to imagine vividly what your life would be like without any of them:

television phones game consoles (Sony Playstation, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Wii, etc.) refrigerator and freezer
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2012: The Survival Manual! electrical oven / microwave oven washing machines personal computers internet access DVD, HD DVD, and Bluray players air-conditioners / fans / air heaters elevators / escalators credit cards and automated teller machines (ATMs)

! Timeline of an Urban Meltdown

! Unfortunately, aside from some day-to-day inconvenience,

terrible societal problems and tragic personal losses are to be expected in such a scenario. Even though it is a very unthankful duty to try to predict the precise course of events when worse

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2012: The Survival Manual! comes to worst, I am rmly convinced it would occur in a sequence similar to this one:

Week 1

electrical power, tap water, satellite communications and global positioning system (GPS) are all gone;

air trafc control goes ofine and - without guidance from the ground - thousands of airplanes crash with their passengers and crews aboard;

mass media disappears and there is no television, newspapers, radio or internet;

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2012: The Survival Manual! we lose all the old and inrm when hospitals" emergency generators run out of diesel; essential medical equipment stops and perishable pharmaceutical drugs spoil;

global economy shuts down, following the crash of international banking system and nancial markets; during the following weeks, local economy is gradually being reduced to primitive exchange of goods or services for other goods or services without using money.

Week 2

with perishable food spoilt in dead refrigerators and water distribution system ground to halt, hunger and thirst drives urban population to widespread looting and ransacking;

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2012: The Survival Manual!

the government tries to step in and regain control of the situation, proclaiming martial law; however, largely unable to coordinate their efforts without usual communication and navigation capabilities, armed forces simply cannot turn the tide; some of the troops defect to their own cause, taking military equipment and weapons with them; command and control is lost

emergency services are overwhelmed and non-essential services shut down.

Week 3

anarchic rioting takes place;

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2012: The Survival Manual!

lawless, armed gangs roam cities;

the streets are lled with dead bodies left out to decompose in the open air;

disease breaks out.

As you can see, things can get extremely ugly in a very short

period of time.

Take a look out of your window now. The familiar surroundings

you have just seen - buildings, infrastructure, people, and all could be transformed into a plundered landscape of death and disease in less than a month. That"s just three short weeks or twenty one days.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! For everything we know, the fateful geomagnetic storm is

coming in 2012, at the peak of the 11-year solar activity cycle. Also, based on the scientic evidence I have already presented to you in the fth chapter of Part 2 (A Crack In Our Armour), we can safely assume it is going to be much, much worse than a Carrington Event of 1859.

That is why I believe you should start preparing yourself for

the worst as soon as possible. Every moment wasted is a moment you might bitterly regret later.

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2012: The Survival Manual!

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2012: The Survival Manual!

! Overview
! One can successfully survive the inescapable decline of cities

into chaos following the failure of power grids after a catastrophic geomagnetic storm only by doing one thing - permanently relocating to the countryside.

Essentially, there are only two real options of survival:

The rst option is not only a more complicated one, but it is

also more expensive and carries more personal risk. You can remain in the city, using your spare time and resources to purchase, equip and stock a countryside safehaven (as described below) and build set of skills needed to successfully survive and prosper in a world without electricity. In order to avoid possible unsafe long journeys across several states (not to mention the
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2012: The Survival Manual! very likely loss of gas and non-operational gas stations along the way!), the property should be in a location you can reach relatively easily, but still as far from urban areas as you can manage. (Please keep in mind, though, that air transport is not an option when air trafc control goes ofine due to the power outage.)

The second option is to purchase a countryside safehaven

(preferrably an electrically independant farm) and move there as soon as possible. That should give you more time to learn all the skills you are going to need in order to survive (animal husbandry, agriculture, traditional crafts, etc.) and - of course - mentally prepare you for the shock of the post-apocalyptic world without basic electrical amenities we are all accustomed to.

As I have already said, the rst one is much harder to pull

than the second one. It enables you to enjoy all the advantages of

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2012: The Survival Manual! contemporary human civilization until the very end, but it leaves you and your loved ones in a very vulnerable position when the fateful geomagnetic storm comes and wreaks havoc on all the electrical systems on Earth. Also, it can be extremely expensive to maintain two separate, fully equipped properties.

The second option is mentally more taxing, essentially

requiring you two abandon your city life and the career you have been building for years. However, aside from giving you more time to adapt to your new surroundings, it also gives you a crucially benecial aspect of an early relocation: more time for interaction with your country neighbours and, thus, more time for tighter integration into the local social fabric - which may very well save your life in the long run.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Even though it may seem like a relatively unimportant thing,

stop for a moment and think about it. Why did early humans use to live organized in clans and tribes back in the dangerous times of our ancient history? Why were big families, often with anything from ten to fteen children, so crucially important even just a century ago?

Of course, the answer is because the presence of other

humans nearby gave our ancestors all the support they required in the times of need - be it hunting, gathering, mutual protection or raising children. Eventually, those early communities led to villages, then to cities, and nally to vast megapolises of today. Since it all came from people"s wish to live close to other human beings, it seems ironic that the modern way of living utterly estranged most of us from other people living in urban areas. To sum it up, the fact is you can survive on your own, but you are

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2012: The Survival Manual! going to need other people to prosper - dismiss this one at your own risk!

! Personal preparation
! As always, an old adage time spent in preparation is time

saved in execution should be your watchword when it comes to preparing for the worst. But, how does one best prepare for a world-changing event such as global loss of electricity?

Actually, there are several things you should do as soon as

you can. If it is possible, make them your absolute priorities, since most of them will not only prepare you for the aftermath of the solar storm, but will also increase your overall quality of life before that.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Treat all treatable medical conditions you may have

This one is crucial. If you take time to do just one thing from

this preparation list thoroughly, make it this one. Of course, your doctor is the rst person with whom you should have a conversation regarding this.

If your eyesight is bad, consider getting a Lasik surgery

instead of wearing contact lenses or eyeglasses. In a world without electricity, both of these will no longer be easy to come by and I suppose it is not neccessary to mention all the hindrances of being rendered virtually helpless in such an enviroment. Also, it would be benecial to take time to research and practice natural vision exercises.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! If you are overweight, sign up for membership at a local gym,

start dieting as soon as possible, and establish control in that area of your well being.

If you"ve neglected your dental care, don"t forget that 18th

century dentistry was not a pretty thing and consisted primarily of tooth extractions without the benet of Novocaine. Take care to get any cavities lled, root canals performed, crowns set, wisdom teeth removed and aging llings replaced while a proper treatment can still be easily procured.

If you rely on medication for a chronic condition, write down

the active ingredients in these formulas and check if any plantbased remedies approximate their effects. For instance, willow bark and caffeine are key to the formulation of aspirin. Since most conditions and diseases pre-date patent medicine, almost 50% of

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2012: The Survival Manual! all medicines used in the United States have herbal ingredients. The quickest and safest way to determine herbal substitutes and proper dosages is to consult a professional herbalist in your area. If that option is not available, there are many good books on the subject.

Essentially, your basic goal is to become a healthy, physically

t individual who is able to function normally without dependence on pharmaceutical products which will be unavailable after the disaster strikes.

Get a rst aid training

The second most important thing is knowing what to do with

your rst aid kit should such a need arise. Nearly all community

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2012: The Survival Manual! colleges and adult education programs offer low-cost courses in CPR/rst aid, and many have separate paramedics divisions that teach courses in advanced techniques.

Another source of relevant information is the American Red

Cross. Local chapters sponsor a variety of rst aid classes. Finally, volunteering for local search and rescue units or Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) should get you an excellent training in rst aid.

Get a weapon training

Please take a moment and think about the similarities about

the lawless, post-apocalyptic world and Wild West. The more you think about, the scarier parallels between the two become.

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A basic rearms training and a subsequent weapon purchase

(with an appropriate reserve of ammunition, of course) should put your mind at ease.

Of course, always consult your lawyer beforehand to avoid

breaking any state and/or federal laws. If your state has restrictive legal framework regarding rearms, consider moving to another state which takes a more liberal stance.

You may also want to get a knife training, since a knife is

available almost everywhere, being invaluable both as a tool and as a weapon. If you do so, be sure to invest in a quality survival knife afterwards.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Learn a martial art

Just like the basic weapon training, martial arts training is a

very useful skill in a challenging enviroment. Essentially, if you are unable to defend yourself or your property in a lawless enviroment, you are not a survivor, but a prey. Since conventional weapons might not be available when a danger strikes, strong hand-to-hand combat skills might be very much crucial to your continued survival.

As a side effect, you will also develop a strong, disciplined

character you are going to need to survive. I especially recommend Kyokushinkai Kaikan for this purpose (see the fth chapter in this part, Survivor Mindset).

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Learn basic farming

You should be able to handle on your own all the basics of

small-scale farming, from growing healthy crops to raising livestock.

Books and websites are ne sources of starting information,

but you cannot really learn farming that way - you need rst-hand experience.

That is where your countryside neighbours and good relations

with them come in: they should be able to offer you precious advice when it comes to these matters. Consider it one more reason to acquaint them as soon as it is convenient.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Learn traditional crafts

Thanks to a contemporary resurgence of interest in the old-

fashioned way of doing things, private schools have popped up around the country to teach things like carpentry and woodwork, sewing and needlework, pottery and ceramics, leather work, blacksmithing and others. Try to master at least one of these traditional crafts - both for your personal use and for possible trade with other homesteaders.

Print this book

Although this book is just a starting point in preparing you to

survive the ordeals of the world without electricity, you may still want to go back to some of the information within it later. A digital

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2012: The Survival Manual! copy like this one won"t be of much use, so you should have it printed.

! Your new home

! Choosing land for purchase, leaving your city behind and

starting new home in the country is a topic you should approach very seriously lest you regret your choices later.

! this:

A checklist for a perfect countryside getaway should look like

an approved fresh-water source on the property fertile, nutrient-rich soil adequate for agriculture preferrably situated in temperate climate

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2012: The Survival Manual! small town under 20 miles away farmer neighbours nearby easily defensible position

All of these components play vital roles and should not be

neglected when buying land for permanent relocation. Keep these in mind at all times and you can"t go wrong.

It is up to you to choose if you want a ready home, a xer or

open space to build. Of course, if you can afford it, the best way to go is to get a farm with ready infrastructure. However, keep in mind that the year 2012 is not that far away and you don"t want to waste your time.

When you start your search, you should visit the prospective

location by yourself. Don"t be satised with a few photos or sweet

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2012: The Survival Manual! talk of real estate agents. Visit as many different locations as possible and carefully inspect each and every of them. Take as much time as you need to record everything that may be important to you. Does enough sun hit the place where you want your vegetable garden to be? What"s the winter weather like there? Do the trees shield your future home from winds in the winter and harsh sunlight in the summer? What are the neighbours occupations and what is the community"s personality? Explore every aspect carefully before comitting to the land.

! Getaway kits
! If you choose to permanently move to your new country home

before the geomagnetic storm strikes, you will not already be just

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2012: The Survival Manual! well-equipped with everything you need, but you will also be safe and away from dangerous urban zones.

However, if you choose to stay in your city and postpone the

evacuation until the fateful solar storm strikes, you still must make sure you are ready for the trip to your safehaven when the time comes. You should prepare the following getaway kits for every person in your family and keep them ready at all times:

1) emergency supply kit; 2) document kit; 3) rst aid kit.

An emergency supply kit contains items needed to make

your evacuation as safe and convenient as possible. Here is a list of recommended items to include:

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water (one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and sanitation) food (at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food) battery-powered or hand crank radio and NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both ashlight and extra batteries whistle (to signal for help) dust mask (to help lter contaminated air) towels, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, toilet paper and sanitary items hearing aids, glasses, mobility aids for elderly or vulnerable members of your house wrench or pliers (to turn off utilities) can opener for food (if kit contains canned food) local maps (paper edition, not digital)

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2012: The Survival Manual! cell phone with chargers

A document kit contains important documents. You should

include at least:

birth and marriage certicates drivers licenses and passports nancial information (insurance policies, mortgage information, etc.) family photos

A rst aid kit contains basic supplies to help your loved ones

if they get hurt during the evacuation. Remember, many injuries are not life threatening and do not require immediate medical attention. Knowing how to treat minor injuries can make a difference in an emergency. As I have said before, consider taking

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2012: The Survival Manual! a rst aid class. You do not have to assemble the rst aid kit yourself - you may purchase it ready-made. However, if you decide to create one, be sure to include at least the following things:

two pairs of Latex, or other sterile gloves (if you are allergic to Latex) sterile dressings to stop bleeding cleansing agent/soap and antibiotic towelettes to disinfect antibiotic ointment to prevent infection burn ointment to prevent infection adhesive bandages in variety of sizes eye wash solution to ush the eyes or as general decontaminant thermometer

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2012: The Survival Manual! prescription medications you take every day such as insulin, heart medicine and astrhma inhalers (you should periodically rotate medicines to account for expiration dates) prescribed medical supplies such as glucose and blood pressure monitoring equipment and supplies scissors tweezers non-prescription drugs (aspirin or nonaspirin pain reliever, anti-diarrhea medication, antacid, laxative)

! Survivor Mindset
! Even if you are safely tucked away in the country, away from

the brutal hell of urban breakdown, chances are it is not going to be a smooth psychological ride. The world as you know it is

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2012: The Survival Manual! literally going to be switched off and replaced with an unfamiliar enviroment you were not raised to live in. How can one keep your cool in such a situation and not fold under pressure?

As with everything else, proper preparation is the key. You

should do your best to strengthen your mental resolve to survive before the fateful solar storm strikes. You have to absolutely know in your heart and mind that you are going to make it at any cost whatsoever.

When people think of strength under pressure, they often

visualize the strong, silent type. Most of us nd the very idea of a really tough guy who can simply compartmentalize his life and not let anything bother him appealing, so we equate it with not folding under pressure. What most of us don"t realize is that the such a mindset can be developed.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! If you consider yourself a religious person, you may nd that

solace and comfort in the rituals of your faith. Listening to religious music or recorded preaching will probably be impossible once the audio players disappear from the picture, but reading the teachings of your religion, praying regularly, talking to God or doing a similar religious task are all activities you should consider.

If your faith is not strong, you are an atheist, or you simply

want to strengthen your mental state even further, another good alternative is to take up a martial art while the cities still stand and while you still can get a quality training.

A typical martial art can help you build a strong, stoic

character in the span of several months, while teaching you powerful hand-to-hand ghting skills at the same time. If you decide to take this venue, I highly recommend Kyokushin Kaikan.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Kyokushin Kaikan is a style of stand-up, full contact karate

which many practicioners consider the toughest type of karate. Kyokushin is rooted in a philosophy of self-improvement, discipline and hard training and, as such, it is especially brilliant at building the strong survivor mindset you want to develop.

Another option I strongly recommend is taking a good

wilderness survival course in the area with natural enviroment similar to the one of your country safehaven. As survival coaches say, competence breeds condence. During such a course, you will probably face cold nights, bloodsucking ticks, thirst, hunger, and similar natural hardships, which will in turn make you both condent in your skills and make a rural wooden log house look like a seven-star hotel.

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2012: The Survival Manual! ! Thank you for reading my book. I hope you have learned a lot

from it. By now, you are way ahead of the curve when it comes to 2012. You are well educated on geomagnetic storms and why they represent the ultimate threat to our civilization and contemporary way of life. You also know what steps you should take to survive the consequences of the fateful solar event and how to protect both your life and lives of your loved ones.

Feel free to contact me at frank@2012thesurvivalmanual.com

if you have any questions, ideas, feedback or anything else. Due to professional duties, I do not know if I will be able to answer all messages immediately, but I promise I shall give my best to answer them as soon as possible.

As a nal parting note, I want to tell you that I am afraid as

much as you are, but I would also like to remind you that every

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2012: The Survival Manual! one of us human beings is capable of surviving the most impossible ordeals. Take the eruption of a supervolcano on Lake Toba on Sumatra island in Indonesia as an example. It happened around 75,000 years ago, ejecting approximately 2,800 km3 of volcanic ash into atmosphere. Since the solid material obscured the sun and increased the Earth"s reectivity of solar radiation, the eruption plunged our planet into a terrible volcanic winter, eradicating an estimated 60% of the global human population. It was a global disaster without precedence - and yet, we humans survived and prospered as a species.

Also, reect for a moment on the fact that our ancient

ancestors did not have even a single clue what was going to happen. On the other hand, you know exactly what the threat is and how to best deal with it. Therefore, your chances of survival are innitely greater than theirs. There is such a thing as human

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2012: The Survival Manual! progress, after all, even if we so often overlook it in our everyday lives.

Once more, thank you for reading this book and please

remember: every moment wasted is a moment you might bitterly regret later.

Yours faithfully, Frank Gabriel

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