Buried caches may be your best protection.

About a year ago, after I had cashed out my Simple IRA and converted to gold and silver (boy am I glad I did that!), I decided my home was not the safest place to keep it.

I split my loot up into several off-site buried caches using one-foot sections of Schedule-40 PVC pipe with a cap for each end glued on with PVC cement. By pushing the second cap onto the end I found I was compressing the air inside so I had to use a lot of pressure to send it all the way home, give it a quarter turn, and hold it in place till the cement grabbed. This design approach requires sawing the tube open to retrieve the contents.

I reasoned this approach was better than a home safe. I've watched how huge, multi-ton logs are yanked off logging blocks up onto the landing and it would be nothing for a big truck to back in, the driver run a big choker cable in through a smashed house window and around my safe, then yank it right through the walls, floor-bolts and all, where it could be winched onto the truck. Five minutes is all it would take.

My rationale was that I needed to protect my assets against not only burglars and pillaging gangs but government confiscation, recalling that FDR had ordered gold turn-in by the public during the last great depression. Do I trust my government or what!

I then began to have increasing concerns that a major gun-grab might be in the works and resolved to make a few longer, larger-diameter tubes, one of which would contain a semiautomatic rifle and lots of ammo. While at work on this project I discovered that LOTS of people shared this concern so I thought there might be a market for such tubes. Not only that, the market could only get better the closer we got to Armageddon, a great depression business maybe.

Anyway, I completed my project with a few design changes: sealed, threaded plug on one end, heat-sealed Mylar bag liner, oxygen absorbers, and some adaptations for tightening and loosening the threaded plug, which, in this larger diameter, required a great deal of torque due to the sticky wax sealant I used. I took great care in burying this and my other caches in order to leave no tell-tale trace of disturbed earth. I choose a spot that nobody probably walks over for years at a time, maybe decades.

Eventually I decided to make a business venture out of my idea and made an array of sizes with my new design approach and began marketing them. My Web site even contains tips on how people can make their own. The detailed use instructions with photos are worth a read as well. See www.preparednessequipment.com.

I plan to bury other things as well. If civil unrest and food shortages result in martial law, food storage will be classified as food hoarding. It will be forbidden not to turn extra food you have over to the authorities. Add this to the danger of desperate, starving people conducting an armed raid on your stored food supplies. I therefore plan to sock away several tubes of foodstuffs in good ole' terra firma. In addition, pending severe supply interruptions, alcoholics and cigarette addicts might find themselves cut off. They would do anything for a smoke or a drink. There may be some officials in this boat that you will need to bribe and a buried stash of liquor and cigarettes could be your ticket NOT to ride to the FEMA death camps (or substitute your own conspiracy idea ;-).

In case I need to flee on foot, I have made a number of short-term survival caches with power bars, money, pain-killers, fresh socks, fire-starter, clip-on flashlight and a light rain poncho among other items. I also want to bury some emergency temporary shelter materials: rope, cord, a roll of 6-mil polyethylene. I've got shelter for myself in my bug-out bag in case I need to spend a few months in the woods but only a few of us are prepared. If we want to help others, a roll of plastic would be invaluable.

Once my mind gets going along a certain line it's hard to stop. So it was that I recently researched polyethylene septic tanks for hiding stored food. I rather suspect they are already in use as buried caches. They are light enough to be transported by pickup and carried or dragged by two people. You might be able to dig a hole by hand in a couple days but I think I would rent a backhoe. They come equipped with manhole covers that could be sealed using toilet ring wax after they are stocked with provisions, plus they are non-metallic so a metal detector cannot be used to find them. These tanks are available for about a dollar per gallon capacity. You can judge for yourself by googling "plastic septic tanks" or follow some of these links to investigate:
www.plastic-mart.com...
http://www.ntotank.com/?g
www.tank-depot.com
www.fralo.net/
http://www.loomistank.com
http://www.watertanks.com

Many suppliers also sell underground cistern tanks that might also be used in this fashion, not to mention as rainwater storage tanks for which they are intended. (Don't forget to cache some water!)

How much time do we have?

If the warning signs are correct, we have several months at most to brace ourselves for the full onslaught of an economic collapse. There is no guarantee it will not happen suddenly, however, before you have made important survival preparations.

Events could cause panic overnight, precipitating a run on the banks that would trigger a bank holiday of indefinite length. Bank accounts and credit cards could be frozen, causing businesses to be unable to buy or sell and employers unable to keep workers employed. In days severe shortages could arise and theft crime could become rampant.

Those who remain indecisive about preparedness run the terrible risk of waiting until suddenly everyone reaches the decision to prepare. Sadly, it will be too late then. The food stores will be mobbed, looters will scuffle over pork chops and snack foods in the aisles, and the shelves will be stripped bare in a matter of hours.

Looters are apt to visit department stores in search of something of value they can trade for food. Police services will be stretched too thinly to offer protection.

The same should be said for those who have taken no steps protect their savings by diversifying into more stable investments such as precious metals.

Will they keep waiting and waiting until their stock portfolio is worth a tenth its former value, then suddenly rush to buy gold when it has doubled or tripled in price?

There is always the chance, and certainly there is the desire, that things will hum along and not get much worse, that it's nothing more than a minor hiccup in the economy like we've all experienced before. But know that there are many very powerful people in the know who are truly alarmed by the unprecedented efforts of the US Federal Reserve and other central banks of the world in attempt to stave off total economic collapse.

These high-placed executives are buying rural retreats and stocking up on food, gold, and guns because they fear what is coming. You should too. Use your imagination as the survival tool it was intended to be. It can help instill an urgency in your preparations. What would you do if you knew everything would collapse tomorrow? Would you draw cash out of your bank? Would you buy extra gas cans and fill them up, topping off your vehicle tank at the same time? Would you buy large quantities of food staples? Would you fill containers with water? Accept that the expected turmoil will begin some day this week. Turn off the TV, shut down the computer, and take action. Once you have made immediate preparations, research and purchase a several-year supply of survival storage foods for you and your family. Buy a gun and ammunition and learn to use it, or buy extra guns and ammo if you are already a gun owner. Visit any local coin shops to see if you can buy some gold and silver. Stay away from collector-grade coins unless you know a lot about them. Buy "junk silver" coins and silver ingots and non-collector gold coins or ingots. If the dollar tanks completely, you will have real money you can spend. Just make sure it is well concealed in several places. Bury it! Devise a retreat plan. Where would you go if things became very ugly and dangerous in your area? Do you want to stock your retreat location ahead of time? Consider buried caches that you can unearth when you arrive. You might find something useful for this purpose at http://www.preparednessequipment.com