5 Tips for Defending Your Home in a SHTF Disaster

Defending your home in an SHTF disaster may not at all be something that you want to do, but it could well be something that you may need to do.

You see, significant disasters such as EMP attacks or natural disasters are almost certainly going to result in armed raiders, looters, and marauders taking to the streets and preying on the innocent.

Looting and property damage are to be expected in this situation.

After Hurricane Katrina landed in the southeastern United States in 2005, for instance, looters went from door to door smashing windows and trying to take everything they could.

Sooner or later in an extended disaster scenario, your home is likely to come under attack, and it’ll be up to you to decide whether you want to evacuate or whether you will stay and fight.

Looters went from door to door smashing windows and trying to take everything they could

While you’re certainly taking a risk with either option, there aren’t really any risk-free options in an SHTF disaster.

Because abandoning your home means you’ll be leaving behind everything else with it, not to mention the fact that you’ll be exposed out in the open, the truth is that there’s a good chance you’ll be taking much less of a risk by opting to stand and fight instead.

With that in mind, here are the top five tips for defending your home in an SHTF disaster:

TIP #1 – MAKE IT WORTH DEFENDING

Fundamentally speaking, your home needs to be worth defending and risking your lives over, and the way you make it worth defending is by stockpiling it full of supplies that you will not want to leave behind at all in the midst of the disaster.

Defend your supplies

This will give you motivation to actually stand your ground and fight, knowing that if you leave your home behind, you’re sacrificing all of the essential gear and supplies you need to survive along with it.

TIP #2 – KEEP THE ATTACKERS OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE

Keep the attackers outside of your house

Next, you need to ensure that you always keep attackers outside of your home at all times. If just one attacker gets in, the chances of your survival will drop significantly.

How do you keep attackers outside of your house at all times? Simple: build a perimeter. The best perimeter to build is a simple barbed wire fence reinforced with nail boards and trip wires.

If you really want to give the defense a boost, you can add to it with additional layers of barbed wire fences and nail boards.

Take note of the fact that any raiding party is seriously going to give attacking your home a second thought if they see you have a barbed wire fence; even if they do attack, their advance will be hindered.

TIP #3 – GIVE YOURSELF PLENTY OF COVER

Sandbags are very effective for absorbing ammunition

If the attackers are armed and organized, you can expect them to open fire. The best way to protect against incoming bullets is naturally to give yourself plenty of cover, and the best type of cover for absorbing incoming ammunition is sandbags.

One other advantage of sandbags is that they are ridiculously easy to store. You can simply store the bags and the sand separately and then fill them up later.

TIP #4 – MAKE IT AS DIFFICULT AS POSSIBLE TO GET INTO YOUR HOUSE

Reinforce your locks

In the event of attackers breaching your defenses and reaching your house, you will need to make it as difficult as possible for them to enter. Fortify your windows by replacing all glass windows with Plexiglas windows, and replace all wooden doors that lead to the outside with steel doors reinforced with heavy-duty locks and hinges.

These kinds of defenses are not impossible for a determined force to break through, but they do make this task significantly more difficult and that’s really what counts.

TIP #5 – HAVE A BACKUP PLAN

If you can have an underground escape tunnel or alternative backup plan it could save your life!

Last but not least: have a backup plan. If the attack is overwhelming and comes from all sides at once, you may not realistically be able to hold onto the house. In this case, you will need to have an escape route and be ready to move out.

Each member of the family should have a bug out bag ready to go, and you should have a way out and a planned destination. An underground tunnel may be nice, but it’s also not a realistic option for most people.

If you really are cut off and can’t make a run for it out the back door, the next best option would be to have a hidden safe room that everyone in the family can retreat to.

This safe room needs to be hidden so intruders can’t find it, and it also needs to be well stockpiled with at least one week’s worth of food and water and with cots for you to sleep on. The idea is to let the intruders scavenge around the house for a few hours or days, and then you can come back out when you think it’s safe. Just be sure that the safe room is actually well hidden (within the walls or under the floor beneath a rug are viable options, depending on your home).