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Be one of the first three people to guess what the electoral college vote will be on Nov. 6th and win a $100 gift card to The Ready Store!

The electoral college is one of the oldest and most unique aspects of our company. Every four years, the college determines who the president of the United States will be.

Fill out the form below for a chance to win a $100 gift card. Remember that the total split between the three entries must total 538. A candidate must earn 270 votes to win the presidency.

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Now is the time that families all across the nation are getting into the Halloween spirit and carving pumpkins. The problem at my house is that we never know what to carve into our pumpkin! Should I just carve a face? A cat? A moon? A haunted house? The ideas are endless and hard to choose from.

So, to help you out this Halloween season, here are a few patterns that you can use or maybe use to spark your imagination.

Click the images below to print off these jack-o-lantern stencils.

These free pumpkin carving patterns are courtesy of Pumpkinmasters.com

If none of these patterns spike your interest, maybe you’d like to carve a pumpkin with your gun like this guy:

Whether it’s a natural disaster, survival scenario or post-apocalyptic world, many times, television shows and movies can be good teachers on what to do during an emergency.

The great thing about a movie or TV show is that we are not associated with the results. We can watch and learn from other’s experiences and scenarios.

Take a look at some shows and movies that will be coming out soon. Comment below to let us know what you think of them and what other movies and shows you think would help you in a survival situation.

The Revolution
Airing: Sept. 17, 2012
Catch it on: Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC

The Revolution takes place 15 years in the future. Some unknown incident has disabled all technology on the planet. That mean no one has access to electricity, computers, cars or other modern gadgets. People are forced to adapt to a new world, learning how to get back to their roots of living off the land and surviving on their own. The TV series focuses on the Matheson family, who possesses an item that might answer the question to why all the lights went out 15 years ago.

The thing that I like about this show is that it makes you think about all the technology that we take advantage of. What would we do without cars? without computers? without the cell phones? Life would be pretty different.

Survivorman
Airing: Aug. 19, 2012
Catch it on: Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on Discovery

Many people have been awaiting the return of Les Stroud to television. He shot three seasons of the show that ended back in 2008. However, this summer he announced that he would be returning to creating the show and “upping the ante.”

Les Stroud, has been known as a survival expert for years and has produced books, articles, shows and documentaries about how to survive in the wild, how to build an off-the-grid home, primitive living and more.

In this season’s episodes of Survivorman, Stroud will take the audience along on his trips where he’ll be surviving in different scenarios for 10 days straight. So far this year, he’s shown audiences how to survive on a Mexican desert island and a Norwegian mountain side.

The Walking Dead
Returning to TV: Oct. 14, 2012
Catch it on: Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC

Police officer Rick Grimes wakes up from a coma in the hospital to an abandoned world. He wakes to find himself in a post-apocalyptic world that has been overrun by zombies (or “walkers” as they are referred to on the show). Grimes sets out to find his family and becomes the leader of a group of survivors.

The show follows the groups efforts to survive in a society that offers no help. The group’s initial desire is to seek out the government’s Center of Disease Control but they find that the government isn’t going to offer them much help either.

Obviously, the show presents some scenarios that aren’t going to occur in real life (namely zombies). But the show is interesting from a survival point of view in that it shows how the group must cope with survival when danger is all around them. The group ends up moving to a farm on the outskirts of town and has to make friends with other survivor groups around them. So, while the scenarios might not present a plausible reality, the show is still interesting for a survivalist point of view.

Red Dawn
Release date: Nov. 21, 2012

Red Dawn is a remake of a 1984 film in which the North Korean army takes over the United States. A group of young high school students band together to fight in a resistance movement. They call their group the Wolverines, after their high school mascot.

The 1984 version of Red Dawn scared a lot of people. The film starred some up-and-coming young talent including Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey and Lea Thompson. The original film depicted a communist takeover of the United States through aggressive military invasion.

The Impossible
Release date: Oct. 11, 2012 (Spain) & Dec. 21, 2012 (United States)

The Impossible is based on one family’s experience during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The family is enjoying a beautiful vacation when they are suddenly caught in the middle of the tsunami. They must first survive the disaster and then they work to regroup and find each other once again after the event.

I’m really interested in seeing the film to see how they portray the effects of a tsunami. It might be very interesting to see how the family copes with different physical and emotional impacts of a disaster.

What are you watching?
So, there are a lot of movies and TV shows out there that portray scenarios that might be useful in an emergency. What are you watching that you would recommend? Comment below and share the knowledge.

Do you know what the difference is between a hurricane and a tropical storm? Or what the typical wind speeds of each are?

Do you consider yourself a hurricane expert? Test your knowledge against this new graphic explaining the anatomy of a hurricane, where they form and how common they are in the United States.

You might be surprised at what you can learn about hurricanes!

Phones are becoming a larger part of our daily lives. Every day, we connect with family, friends, businesses associates and others via our phone. We check news, social media, text messages, email and more.

Because phones are such a common item, we don’t often think that our phone could save our life! There are many precious items that Bear Grylls would never abandon if he had a phone in the wild. Check out the infographic below to see how you might be able to use parts of your phone to start fires, cut, signal, direct you and more!

Also, comment below to tell us what you have re-purposed your phone for! Share your tips and tricks.

If it seems like wildfires have dominated the news this summer, you’re not alone. In fact, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center, 2012 wildfires have already burned nearly 7 million acres – the most in the past decade.

While the actual number of fires has decreased this year, the acreage affected by a wildfire has risen.

This year, there have been nearly 631 fires contained. However, there are still 39 active wildfires across the nation.

The majority of wildfires this year occurred in California (12) and Idaho (9). There were also wildfires reported in Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

In the last few days, evacuations have been ordered in parts of California and Idaho.

“Aided by a shift in winds, firefighters were making a stand against the fire, which has destroyed seven homes and prompted fearful residents to take shelter at a sports complex in nearby Redding.

Since igniting Saturday, the fire grew to more than 30 square miles. Nearly 1,900 firefighters were battling the blaze in rugged, densely forested terrain as it threatened 3,500 homes in the remote towns of Shingletown, Manton and Viola, about 170 miles north of Sacramento.” (Read the Washington Post article.)

A 91,000-acre fire is also burning in Boise National Forest that has caused thick smoke and posed health threats to many. More than anything, firefighters are worried about residents who are refusing to evacuate.

“It puts everyone in higher danger. Firefighters will have to worry about the safety of people who are left behind instead of fighting the fire and saving homes. We hope those residents will reconsider and get out of there.” – Mary Christensen | U.S. fire information officer

This week’s photos show fires in Spain and Washington state, volunteers in the Philippines and some amazing emergency preparedness inventions. Specifically, a man built something called “Noah’s Ark of China.”

Check it out below! Click on the images to view the slide show of This Week in Photos!

A recent survey shows that most people who live in hurricane-prone areas don’t know if they are at risk of storm surges.

At least ⅓ of those surveyed aren’t sure if they live in an area that is at risk of severe flooding in case of a hurricane or tropical storm. In fact, nearly 40 percent of respondents incorrectly said that they do not live in a FEMA-designated flood zone.

The survey asked over 3,000 coastal residents in South Carolina about their emergency plans and knowledge of surge zones.

This is alarming when considering that the majority of deaths during hurricanes are caused by flooding and storm surges. A storm surge is a rising of the sea level as a result of atmospheric pressure changes and wind associated with a storm.

“The lack of awareness is going to lead to either inaction or the wrong action when the time comes,” said Chris Emrich, research assistant professor at the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina, which conducted the survey.

Interestingly, many respondents who lived just outside of the flood risk zones were just as likely to evacuate in case of a storm. Emergency managers are worried that these “shadow evacuations” could cause excessive gridlock during a storm.

Over 53 percent of respondents said that their home would likely be damaged in a hurricane. The majority of respondents agreed that their home would likely receive that damage by severe wind or tree damage (51 percent).

Only 29 percent of respondents said that they believed their home would be damaged by a flood or surge. In fact, over 44 percent said that a flood was unlikely.

A large majority of the respondents (75 percent) have dealt with tropical storms and hurricanes in the past.

The survey also addressed issues of evacuation routes, plans, locations and more. If you’d like to read the Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute article, please click here.

We stumbled upon this awesome visual of tornadoes in the United States over the past 60 years.

The United States has about 1,000 tornadoes every year. We don’t know how many tornadoes actually form each year because many of them don’t touch ground or are never reported.

On average, tornadoes in the United States kill approximately 60 people each year. Many of the deaths are caused from falling or flying debris. Many times flooding plays a major role in the damage.

Click on the image to see an expanded version. The design was created by John Nelson of uxblog.indvsolutions.com using data from NOAA.

Previously on the blog, we covered how to compare food storage supplies. We highlighted how you should assess calories, variety, shipping costs, packaging types and more. We also highlighted some things that weren’t very important when comparing food storage supplies.

We have prepared this easy-to-use checklist to help you out! Easily compare two long-term food storage kits, place a check mark in the column next to the kit with the better offering. The kit with the most check marks wins!

Example:      READYprep 2000 | 12 month		Example:     Another’s 12-month kit
Name of Supply Kit		Name of Supply Kit
Calories Per Day		Calories Per Day
Cost:    $		Cost:     $
Shipping Cost:    $		Shipping Cost:    $
Total Cost (Cost + Shipping)    $		Total Cost (Cost + Shipping)    $
Cost Per Cal. (Total Cost/Cal)		Cost Per Cal. (Total Cost/Cal)
# of Foods (Not # of Cans)		# of Foods (Not # of Cans)
Freeze-dried or Dehydrated		Freeze-dried or Dehydrated
Packaging Type (Circle One) Cans Buckets Pouches		Packaging Type (Circle One) Cans Buckets Pouches
Winner:

You can also print off the PDF version of this chart to use again and again!