Product Description

PREPAREDNESS NOW! is a practical and comprehensive emergency survival guide to help regular folks wisely navigate the new realities of 21st Century living: extreme weather, global warming, bird flu, terrorist attacks, and more.

This book empowers individuals and communities to take care of themselves and each other in the face of any emergency. Packed with checklists, resources, and step-by-step instructions, PREPAREDNESS NOW! has everything from home, office and car preparedness to information on Buckminster Fuller and building disaster-resistant geodesic domes.

PREPAREDNESS NOW! is written by one of the most experienced preparedness experts in the field. Author Aton Edwards is Executive Director of the NYC-based non-profit organization, International Preparedness Network (IPN). IPN has worked with the Red Cross, Center for Disease Control, New York City Police Department, and other organizations to train thousands domestically and overseas to prevent and respond to emergencies and disasters.

PREPAREDNESS NOW! provides years of wisdom gained from Edwards’ first-hand experience and the experience of his extensive network of colleagues. You will learn basic and advanced techniques that will help you make the most informed choices for your own disaster plan–wherever you may live, and whatever your physical abilities and financial means.

This manual delivers practical advice on:

Building your emergency kits for home, car and office
Water Quality Control and Storage
Emergency Shelter, Power, Lighting and Heating
Emergency Transportation, Communications and Evacuation
Extreme weather preparedness
Chemical, Biowarfare and Nuclear Preparedness
Defense against Infectious Diseases
Personal Defense and Crime Prevention for the 21st Century Home

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #426468 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 340 pages

Review
"Aton Edwards is a man with the perfect skills for our troubled times." -- BBC Radio

"Aton's work is tremendously important. What we need to do for the next round is to get ourselves prepared." -- Chuck D., author, musician, and host of

"Aton's work is very important. The people must begin to prepare themselves. This book can help them do it." -- Dr. Ken Alibek, author of Biohazard and former director of Biopreparat, the Soviet Union biological weapons program

"It's a great thing that we have Aton Edwards to help inform and prepare the public." -- Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone

"Senator Chuck Schumer, meet your germ warfare czar." -- Robert Kolker, New York magazine

From the Publisher
"We don't like anticipating disasters. It suggests pessimism and America is largely a nation of optimists. But when you look at the damage inflicted by an accidental storm, you have to think about the sheer havoc that an intentional terrorist attack may produce one of these days. We want to believe that no one will ever use a weapon of mass destruction against one of our cities. But it's almost inevitable that someone, someday will. We don't like to hear that. We certainly don't want to contemplate the consequences. But we need to talk about it and we need to plan for it. The very worst thing you can do when confronting a potential disaster is to take the position that it'll never happen to us."

—Ted Koppel, Nightline, 8/30/05

About the Author
Aton Edwards is Executive Director of the NYC-based non-profit organization, International Preparedness Network (IPN). IPN has worked with the Red Cross, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York City Police Department, and other organizations to train thousands domestically and overseas to prevent and respond to emergencies and disasters.

Customer Reviews

Disaster Preparedness Books
If you're like I was, you're looking through the various disaster preparedness books wondering which one is best. I have worked my way through many of the most popular books and offer a shared review of all of them here. I hope this comparison helps you make a decision.

Book 1: Crisis Preparedness by Jack A. Spigarelli
Like many of the disaster preparedness books, this one begins by answering the question, "Why bother being prepared?" It also outlines a framework for being prepared that includes accumulating supplies, getting mentally and physically prepared, and having your finances in order. One thing I particularly liked was the emphasis on the importance of knowledge. It wasn't just about what items you need, but also what skills and knowledge you should develop. But this book is mostly about food preparation for a major disaster, with emphasis on having a year's food storage, milling your own grain, growing sprouts, home canning, dehydrating, freeze-drying, etc. There are detailed tables showing the calories of various foods including their protein, fat, and carbs. The final third of the book offers advice on other topics, including weapons, hand tools, clothing, energy, medical, sanitation, transportation, communications, and home preparation. The book concludes with a list of recommended books and a brief listing of companies that sell disaster preparation items. Overall, this is a very good preparedness book. I probably should have given it 5 stars, but I thought it went a bit overboard on the food plan. That said, it is the most comprehensive of the preparedness books.

Book 2: Preparedness Now! By Aton Edwards
This is another thorough disaster preparedness book, one that focuses more on emergency situations (fire, chemical attack, etc.). It is organized into brief chapters (some only a few pages) on a variety of important topics, including: water, food, shelter, sanitation, communication, transportation, and protection. It is also filled with many packing lists detailing what you should get in preparation. It introduces the e-kit (a very lightweight kit to keep with you) and grab-n-go bag with more extensive items. Final chapters of the book discuss various possible disasters, including earthquakes, tsunami, infectious diseases, chemical and bio warfare, crime, fire, and extreme weather. Some of the commentary is a bit questionable, but the technical content is good. Note the deficiency with this book is that it does not offer any detail on food storage.

Book 3: Disaster Preparedness for Dummies
First of all, this isn't a book. It's a DVD video. I wasn't paying attention when I bought it, and was a bit surprised when it arrived. I generally like the Dummies series. They are well researched and serve as a good summary. This DVD offers a lengthy video discussing many disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, etc.), briefly outlining how you might prepare for them. It also has an overview of how you should react in case of a terrorist attack (nuclear, chemical, and biological). But the advice is all very general, and is more like what you'd expect to hear from your local weather station. For example, the video repeatedly advises you to "stay calm" and "evaucate in an orderly fashion." The videos are high quality, but don't expect detailed outdoor survival tips or food storage suggestions. Everything presented is relevant and useful, but it feels more like a FEMA public service announcement.

Book 4: Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook by Peggy Layton
This book is broken into six main sections. The first section offers decent but very incomplete summaries on preparing for short-term emergencies. The second section discusses how to store and purify water. The third part talks about the logistics of setting up a food-storage program, and has some suggestions on how to store food. The fourth section details what types of foods you should store. The fifth section has blank inventory planning pages. And finally the last section has some recipes. About half of the 285 page book is either blank planning pages or simple recipes. The first half of the book is pretty good stuff, but I found this book to be incomplete. It does however offer some good advice on food storage.

Book 5: Organize for Disaster by Judith Kolberg
This book goes an entirely different direction than the other preparedness books. Emphasis is on understanding the federal resources (i.e. FEMA, Red Cross, etc.) available, creating a personal intelligence network, organizing essential documents, maintaining insurance coverage, listing a home inventory, preparing your house for disaster, basic first aid, and having a good family communication plan. There is also a good list of necessary items to have on hand that would suit many common disaster. I recommend this book for its common-sense look at disaster preparedness. However, it is not the only book you would need, because it doesn't detail food storage, water purification, heating, etc.. That said, it covers some topics that the other books overlook.

Book 6: Making the Best of Basics, Family Preparedness Handbook by James Talmage Stevens
This book is almost completely about in-home food storage and preparation. There is little discussion outside that (except for basic water issues). Many chapters discuss food in significant detail, to include things like grains, recipes, preparing sourdough breads/biscuits, dairy products, honey, sprouting, drying of fruits/vegetables. At the end of this book is a huge compendium of preparedness resources, telling where things can be purchased in every US state.

Book 7: No Such Thing as Doomsday, by Philip L. Hoag, revised in 2001
This book offers well-researched insights into disaster preparedness. Topics include water, food, heating/cooking, light, power, communications, medical, sanitation, and security. Those subjects are well done. However, much of the book reads like a bit of doomsday prediction, with many pages devoted to scaring the heck out of the reader... focusing on missile attacks, chemical dangers, nuclear war, radiation, decontamination, communist threat, etc. For me personally, I would have like to see more pages devoted to likely threats (e.g. hurricanes, floods, earthquake, blackout, fire, etc.). Also note that Amazon may not carry the latest version (updated in 2001), so you may want to buy directly from the author.

Book 8: When All Hell Breaks Loose, by Cody Lundin
This book falls somewhere between doomsday survivalism and practical disaster preparedness. It is a high quality publication, filled with illustrations and a color insert. My prediction is that you will either love this book or hate it. It does cover many of the basic topics (food, shelter, water, sanitation, light, first aid, self-defense, communications, and transportation). But the material is presented in such a way that it is very chaotic and difficult to read. There are distracting quotes and cartoons, as well as advice that is targeted more towards the end of civilization scenario. For example, he discusses how to wipe your bottom with a stick or other foreign object, how to cook up a rat, how to compost your poop, etc. It's all very interesting, but not particularly useful for say preparing for a harsh winter storm.

Overall, if you can only purchase three books, I would recommend Book 5, Book 6, and either Book 1, 2, 7 or 8. With those three, you should have a balanced look at common sense organizing, food storage, and emergency items to have on hand. If you can buy only one book, I recommend Book 1.

I've created a useful disaster preparedness list for your automobile and a listing of the important disaster related websites on the web. To see those, just search my name Arthur Bradley on Amazon under BOOKS and then click at the top on my author blog.

Written by Arthur Bradley, author of "Process of Elimination" - an intense thriller in which a martial artist, a greedy corporate attorney, and a conspiracy theorist try to stop a world-class sniper out to shape the next Presidential election.

Please be kind enough to indicate if reviews are helpful.

One of the Best Survival Books Ever
As an M.D. involved in disaster planning, and who lives in a hurricane zone in Florida I have read extensively in the field and this is one of the best survival books I have found. It is not an "arm yourself to the teeth and build a bomb shelter" book. It is a book all Americans should own and read. Practical, sensible advice, and excellent list of quality equipment sources.

Sometimes a bit over the top... but useful.
I have scanned thru most of the book by Edwards and have enjoyed reading it. This is perfect reading for the toilet-I don't mean to sound crass but this is a perfect book to read in sections as opposed to from page one.
It makes sense to me to read this book and modify what Mr .Edwards says in order that it may fit a specific scenario. Not all of us can carry a huge Bug Out Bag( I do) but his suggestion of multiple bags is a bit over the top. I got several very useful tidbits from this book and will continue to gleen more as I read more. Most of his book delves into prepardness(hence the title) and there are aspects that everybody should have some grasp of. The threat of future terrorist attacks is inevitable so it makes perfect sense to have knowledge of what will happen in various situations ie nuclear,chem/bio etc. It would also seem that in order to survive most of these attacks one needs fairly deep pockets in order to afford the quality protective gear needed to withstand such an attack. I think a basic preparedness is a must in todays world-having some essentials close at hand is simply common sense and I think that is where most people should be. If you have unlimited resources then by all means fully suit you and your family and pets up and have 3 plus BOBs, water, food and games etc ready for any impending emergency.
Another thing I like about this book is that Mr.Edwards uses real companies and their products-some of which are useful and most can accessed via the internet. It's important that in this modern world websites and product names be given and even recommended. This makes it easier for the reader to draw their own conclusions on products and even formulate their own recommendations and what may work better for them.
I like what Mr. Edwards has to say but as with anything in life use the info as it applies to you and your situation.