Faraday Cage-What to Keep in Them

What’s in YOUR Faraday Cage? A common sense guide to preparing for an EMP
http://thesurvivalmom.com/whats-in-your-faraday-cage-a-common-sense-guide-to-preparing-for-an-emp/

 Massive solar flares have been in the news recently, along with vague warnings of how a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) might affect us here on earth. The dangers of a man-made Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) was outlined in excruciating detail in One Second After by William Forstchen.

We rely on electronics way too much to ignore the potential of these events, and although even the experts aren’t always in agreement where details are concerned, it makes sense to have a plan to protect important electronics in either event.

What experts do agree on is that many items with any type of electronic component may become inoperable by either a CME or EMP. From Survival Mom: How to prepare your family for everyday disasters and worst-case scenarios:

An EMP can be caused by the detonation of a large bomb,nuclear or otherwise, in the atmosphere, miles above land. Its pulsewave can easily cover a continent and destroy electronic componentsin computers, engines, power plants, and solar panels alike. An eventlike this has never happened on a large scale, and there are differingopinions as to the exact consequences, but one thing is certain: In amatter of moments, life as we know it would be gone forever. Ourclosest star, the sun, could also do extensive damage in the form of aCoronal Mass Ejection (CME). The results would be similar.

I don’t have a plan to turn my garage into a giant Faraday cage in hopes that our vehicles would be spared, but I have made plans to protect other, smaller items that would make a huge difference in our survival following a CME or EMP. Here is a list of some of those items.  ---CONTINUED---

Here are a few of the items I’ve stored in my various Faraday cages:
Civil Defense meters, (low range, high range and remote sensor units)
Civil Defense dosimeters and chargers
Lots of LED flashlights, some with removable batteries, some integral, some shake to charge (inductive charging with coils and a magnet internally)
A couple of LED lanterns
USB battery packs
a bunch of small solar panels to charge USB battery packs
two C-Crane solar battery chargers (for AA and D cells)
two small solar panels that can charge 9 volt NiMH batteries
A bunch of emergency radios
four hand-held FRS walkie talkies (short range stuff)
a couple of digital multimeters
a few small solar calculators
a DVD player with integrated LCD screen
A Kindle with over 1500 books

and I’m sure I stashed some stuff in them that I’m just forgetting right now…

One can/cage has one set of radiation gear, one emergency radio, a lantern and a flashlight. This is stored by our shelter entrance for radiological events so we can figure out when it’s safe to exit.

All my Alkaline and NiMH batteries are stored outside the faraday cages since they have no electronics to be damaged by an EMP pulse. Only the lithium battery packs are stored in the cages, although I charge them up every month or so to make sure they don’t drain past usefulness (some battery packs won’t charge again if the circuitry is drained completely.) I charge the Kindle up monthly and more often when I’m adding a batch of books to it. A 4GB Kindle Touch can hold a LOT of books so I’ve got educational texts, prepper guides, cookbooks, recreational material and more on there.

Sure, most of that stuff is not strictly survival gear, but I had the cash and thought it might make life less dreary when things get bleak. It’s also why I store sweets in my food storage too…guess I’m just an old softie since I want to do more than just survive.