You will often hear coaches and survivors talking about the “Rule of Three” and you may be a bit confused, because there is actually more than one “Rule of Three”. And while both were originally designed to help a person in the wilderness, they can also be very helpful to city dwellers these days who may never venture into the woods.

Let’s take a look at what the coaches and survivors are talking about and see why, whatever “Rule of Three” you’re talking about, it’s so fundamental to surviving in an SHTF (Sewage Hits The Fan) scenario.

Rule of three: outdoor survival

This “Rule of Three” helps you focus on your survival priorities in an outdoor life and death situation. The rule states that you can live 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, 3 hours without shelter (in a hypothermic environment), and 3 minutes without oxygen.

Repeating this rule if you find yourself stranded somewhere will help you clarify your priorities. The fun and tragic thing about survival in the wild is that people often become obsessed with food and don’t realize that without shelter they won’t last the night if it’s too cold.

So if you’re lost in the woods, food is the last thing you need to worry about. However, many times, city-dwelling guys or ‘macho guys’ decide that they will sharpen a stick or, like Rambo, attach their knife to a long staff and go ‘hunting’ instead of going out to make shelter. .

How does this apply to city dwellers? Well, if you’re preparing for a power outage, then preserving the contents of your refrigerator may not be as big of a priority as making sure the family can stay warm on sub-zero nights.

Rule of three: duplication

Said to come from Native American wisdom, this “Rule of Three” says that if something is critical to survival, then you must have three ways to make sure you have that foundation covered.

If you are talking about starting a fire in the desert, then you should have, for example, a lighter, a “Boy Scout Match” (or iron rod) and also some matches. This way, if one ignition method fails, you’ll have two more to back it up.

This “Rule of Three” goes on to say that if you have three, then you know you can count on two; if you have two, you know you can count on one; but if you have one, you really have nothing at worst.

Both “Rules of Three” are very true and can save your life. The main thing is that you learn these rules, develop scenarios in your mind and decide in advance what you will do when faced with a crisis.

The crisis you are facing may be in the desert or it could be during a major power outage like the one experienced by the East Coast with Hurricane Katrina or as the Northeast experienced with the 2003 power outage. In each case, millions people were caught unexpectedly without power. For several days.