//The Wire//2300Z July 6, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: CHINA AND NORTH KOREA CONDUCT MISSILE TESTS IN PACIFIC. RUSSIA AND UKRAINE CONDUCT MAJOR TARGETING EFFORTS. INDONESIAN MILITARY RECOVERS REMAINS OF AMERICAN PILOT KILLED IN AMBUSH OVER THE WEEKEND.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Far East: Multiple missile tests were reported over the weekend, with both North Korea and China conducting tests of long-range munitions. North Korea tested a total of 12x cruise missiles from the *KANG KON*, the Choe Hyon-class Destroyer which is the newest addition to the Korean People's Navy. In China, a submarine-launched ballistic missile test was carried out at an undisclosed location in the Pacific, marking the first test of a SLBM by China in several years. Europe: The war in Ukraine escalated over the weekend as Russia renewed strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. On Saturday, Ukrainian forces conducted more long-range drone attacks on Russian oil depots, most notably the Ust-Luga oil terminal in St. Petersburg. Separately, a different series of drone attacks struck various refineries in the Omsk region, deep within Russia. In response, Russia has conducted several strikes throughout Kiev, including the Vishnyovoye fuel depot on the southwestern outskirts of Kiev, which resulted in an extremely large fire. NASA's space-based fire detection sensors noted one very large fire at this fuel depot, along with a few smaller fires throughout the city that are anomalies from normal heat signatures in the region. In addition to the fuel depot, an ammo dump was co-located with this facility, which was used to store American tank rounds which contained depleted uranium penetrators, along with components for the production of cluster munitions which also contained depleted uranium. Analyst Comment: Depleted uranium tank rounds are about 40% less radioactive than raw uranium that is mined out of the ground, so the radiological nature of this ammunition is not normally a concern. However, this risk changes substantially if it's on fire as the smoke produced by burning uranium does indeed present a radiological hazard, thus the evacuations. This ammunition storage area was located in a densely populated residential area, with the resulting fires prompting the evacuation of roughly 600x residents. Indonesia: Over the weekend, Indonesian troops conducted an operation to recover the remains of an American civilian pilot who was killed by armed rebels in a remote town high in the mountains southeast of Wamena on the island of West Papua. Nicholas F. Goselin was a bush pilot flying supplies and materiel into Balinggama Airstrip when he was ambushed last Thursday. The attack was carried out by the West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB), a separatist movement that has been seeking independence from Indonesia for a few decades. The rebels allowed Goselin to land, before murdering him on the airstrip and burning his aircraft. At the time of the ambush, a total of 7x passengers (local Indonesian villagers) were allegedly onboard the aircraft and their status is unknown. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: According to the armed rebels in Indonesia, the reason for the murder is due to Goselin allegedly shuttling Indonesian special forces into the region to fight the rebels. An American bush pilot landing at sketchy airstrips, alone, in the middle of a war-torn region high in the mountains is not a particularly safe career choice, and it's not clear as to what prompted the rebels to conduct this attack. The rebel group has claimed that they warned the aircraft not to land, but the airline that Goselin was flying for (PT AMA) made no mention of acknowledging any no-fly zones declared by armed groups. In any case, due to the death of an American, the Indonesian military is likely to crack down hard on this region over the next few weeks, in order to prevent rebel groups from capitalizing on their power-projection operations. Back in April, the United States signed a non-binding "defensive cooperation partnership" with Indonesia as Washington sought to increase relations by way of undermining Chinese expansion in the region. On April 13th of this year, one day before the defense pact was signed, Indonesian media reported that their nation was discussing (or had already agreed to) allowing American military access to their airspace. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z July 6, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: CHINA AND NORTH KOREA CONDUCT MISSILE TESTS IN PACIFIC. RUSSIA AND UKRAINE CONDUCT MAJOR TARGETING EFFORTS. INDONESIAN MILITARY RECOVERS REMAINS OF AMERICAN PILOT KILLED IN AMBUSH OVER THE WEEKEND.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Far East: Multiple missile tests were reported over the weekend, with both North Korea and China conducting tests of long-range munitions. North Korea tested a total of 12x cruise missiles from the *KANG KON*, the Choe Hyon-class Destroyer which is the newest addition to the Korean People's Navy. In China, a submarine-launched ballistic missile test was carried out at an undisclosed location in the Pacific, marking the first test of a SLBM by China in several years. Europe: The war in Ukraine escalated over the weekend as Russia renewed strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. On Saturday, Ukrainian forces conducted more long-range drone attacks on Russian oil depots, most notably the Ust-Luga oil terminal in St. Petersburg. Separately, a different series of drone attacks struck various refineries in the Omsk region, deep within Russia. In response, Russia has conducted several strikes throughout Kiev, including the Vishnyovoye fuel depot on the southwestern outskirts of Kiev, which resulted in an extremely large fire. NASA's space-based fire detection sensors noted one very large fire at this fuel depot, along with a few smaller fires throughout the city that are anomalies from normal heat signatures in the region. In addition to the fuel depot, an ammo dump was co-located with this facility, which was used to store American tank rounds which contained depleted uranium penetrators, along with components for the production of cluster munitions which also contained depleted uranium. Analyst Comment: Depleted uranium tank rounds are about 40% less radioactive than raw uranium that is mined out of the ground, so the radiological nature of this ammunition is not normally a concern. However, this risk changes substantially if it's on fire as the smoke produced by burning uranium does indeed present a radiological hazard, thus the evacuations. This ammunition storage area was located in a densely populated residential area, with the resulting fires prompting the evacuation of roughly 600x residents. Indonesia: Over the weekend, Indonesian troops conducted an operation to recover the remains of an American civilian pilot who was killed by armed rebels in a remote town high in the mountains southeast of Wamena on the island of West Papua. Nicholas F. Goselin was a bush pilot flying supplies and materiel into Balinggama Airstrip when he was ambushed last Thursday. The attack was carried out by the West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB), a separatist movement that has been seeking independence from Indonesia for a few decades. The rebels allowed Goselin to land, before murdering him on the airstrip and burning his aircraft. At the time of the ambush, a total of 7x passengers (local Indonesian villagers) were allegedly onboard the aircraft and their status is unknown. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: According to the armed rebels in Indonesia, the reason for the murder is due to Goselin allegedly shuttling Indonesian special forces into the region to fight the rebels. An American bush pilot landing at sketchy airstrips, alone, in the middle of a war-torn region high in the mountains is not a particularly safe career choice, and it's not clear as to what prompted the rebels to conduct this attack. The rebel group has claimed that they warned the aircraft not to land, but the airline that Goselin was flying for (PT AMA) made no mention of acknowledging any no-fly zones declared by armed groups. In any case, due to the death of an American, the Indonesian military is likely to crack down hard on this region over the next few weeks, in order to prevent rebel groups from capitalizing on their power-projection operations. Back in April, the United States signed a non-binding "defensive cooperation partnership" with Indonesia as Washington sought to increase relations by way of undermining Chinese expansion in the region. On April 13th of this year, one day before the defense pact was signed, Indonesian media reported that their nation was discussing (or had already agreed to) allowing American military access to their airspace. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z May 18, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: CRIME AND SHOOTING SPREES RUN RAMPANT IN UNITED STATES. VEHICLE RAMMING ATTACK REPORTED IN ITALY. WAR IN MIDDLE EAST CONTINUES AS STRIKES REPORTED AT EMIRATI NUCLEAR FACILITY. U.S. STRIKES ISIS LEADERSHIP IN NIGERIA. FUEL CRISIS RESULTS IN SHARP INCREASE IN SHIPPING PRICES WORLDWIDE.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Middle East: The situation remains as before, with most of the focus remaining on the restriction of travel through the Strait of Hormuz. As of this morning, all diplomatic efforts between the United States and Iran have failed to open the Strait, and traffic remains stagnant through the waterway. A handful of tankers have transited out of the Strait via the Iranian route, but Project Freedom has not resulted in any western-aligned merchants transiting the Strait since the initial skirmishes on it's first day. Around the region, limited targeting efforts continue to take place. Yesterday, the UAE reported drone strikes at the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in Al Dhafra. Three drones were detected and two were shot down, but one drone successfully stuck the compound. None of the reactors at the facility were breached, and no release of radiological material was reported. Nigeria: Hostilities have increased sharply over the past few days, with the United States conducting several airstrikes targeting ISIS facilities. President Trump himself announced the completion of a raid targeting Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, a senior commander within the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) insurgent group. Analyst Comment: Prior to a few days ago, the United States was only supporting Nigeria with intelligence and surveillance assets, and not openly engaging in the war themselves, at least as far as the public is concerned. The weekend raid on an ISIS stronghold is a major escalation of US involvement in the war, even though the mission may have initially been to capture al-Minuki. A good bit of reading between the lines is needed (along with a bit of speculation) to interpret what happened, as this announcement is different than other targeting efforts throughout the continent. The wording of all official reports implies that this was a ground operation to capture the leadership who had congregated together inside a compound. At some point, this ground operation transitioned to airstrikes taking out the target, with the High-Value Targets (HVTs) being killed during the strike. Speculating a bit, it's possible that when the ground force experienced significant resistance and everyone scattered from the meeting site on motorcycles, the US bombed the building and got al-Minuki by happenstance. This is a tale as old as time in the targeting world (especially in Africa), and aligns with the previous strikes within Sokoto, which targeted senior ISIS leadership in the same area back in December. Italy: Over the weekend a vehicle ramming attack was reported in Modena, as a terrorist rammed his vehicle into a crowd of people on Via Emilia Centro, a historic street in the center of town. A total of 10x people were wounded during the attack, with 4x victims remaining hospitalized in critical condition. The assailant has been identified as Salim El Koudri, and local authorities have not commented on motive. -HomeFront- Texas: Over the weekend a shooting spree was reported in Austin, as three suspects conducted approximately 12x small arms attacks around the city. The incident began Saturday with the theft of firearms from a local store, and also the theft of a vehicle from an apartment complex in north Austin. From there, the suspects conducted a joyride around the city, shooting at random citizens. One of the first targets was Fire Station 26 on Wentworth Drive, along with Fire Station 32 near Rollingwood. Throughout the city, over 20x different shooting calls were reported, with over 12x different shooting victims resulting from the shooting spree. At some point during the series of attacks from Saturday afternoon until Sunday morning, police made the connection that all of these attacks were related and involved the same suspects. A BOLO notice was put out by Austin PD, which was picked up by Manor Police Department, with one patrol officer visually observing the vehicle as the BOLO was put out on the radio. This immediately turned into a pursuit, with the suspects eventually crashing in a muddy field on state road 973, near a residential area in Manor. After the pursuit ended, the occupants of the vehicle scattered, and a large shelter-in-place order was issued while the manhunt was conducted to find the suspects. Two of the suspected shooters were captured immediately, a 17 year old and a 15 year old, both of which have long criminal records. A third suspect remained at large until nightfall, when he was discovered and arrested. California: This afternoon, an active shooter incident was reported at the Islamic Center of San Diego. Analyst Comment: No word yet on casualties or any other details yet as this is a developing situation. However, a media helicopter captured a video of a very clearly deceased individual located at the front entrance to the facility, so at least one person (possibly the shooter) was killed during the attack. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Around the world, fuel prices remain a growing concern. Over the past few days, sharp increases in the price of freight has been observed as the cost of diesel makes it more expensive to move cargo within the homeland. At the national level, the LMI Transportation index indicates that freight costs are the highest in recent memory, with the latest numbers for April being released and confirming what we already know...moving cargo is now extremely expensive. At the more operational level, this sharp increase in shipping costs can be seen with the price of moving a standard Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) shipping container. Before the war began, this container (on average) cost $980 to ship from China, to the Middle East (via the Red Sea route, not through the Strait of Hormuz). Right now, this same container costs about $4,131 to ship along the same route. During the COVID era, the maximum price observed was about $3,900 so as it stands, the oil shock has already impacted shipping costs more than COVID did. These costs are being observed right now within the United States both in terms of goods rising in price, but also availability. Throughout the Middle East, lots of talk continues and there isn't really any indicator for when this crisis might end. This afternoon, President Trump stated that the large-scale bombing of Iran was scheduled to continue tomorrow, but he has decided to hold off on the resumption of the war while a negotiated settlement is allegedly imminent. At the moment, it's not clear as to if this is just diplomatic posturing, or a genuine diplomatic effort. This exact situation was also alleged during the halt to Project Freedom, which stopped after one day due to a settlement that never came. In this case, this could be a negotiating tactic, but overall the war is certainly not over, and the effects of the war (i.e. the global petroleum crisis) remain largely unmitigated. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z July 9, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: TENSIONS RISE BETWEEN GERMANY AND CHINA REGARDING RED SEA INCIDENT. TAIWAN BEGINS LARGE-SCALE MILITARY EXERCISE. WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES NEW TARIFF ON COPPER.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Far East: Taiwan began their largest annual military drill yesterday evening, with this year's exercises being the most substantial to date. This drill is scheduled to last 10x days, roughly double the length of last year's maneuvers. Germany: Controversy has resulted from an incident that occurred in the Red Sea a few days ago. German authorities have stated that a Chinese warship operating in the Red Sea deliberately targeted one of their aircraft with a laser with the indent to blind the pilots and/or damage sensor equipment. This incident prompted Germany to summon the Chinese Ambassador to account for the situation, and tensions between the two nations have increased as a result. -HomeFront- Washington D.C. - Yesterday the White House announced implementing a 50% tariff on all imported copper. Following this announcement, the price of copper skyrocketed by 13% to a new high today. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: The long-term economic impacts of pumping the price of copper are best analyzed by economists. However, the real-world impacts to the average person are plain to see. Anytime a precious metal sharply increases, theft of that metal also rises. Copper theft is already a growing problem in most areas, so opportunistic criminals will likely take advantage of this new high to steal and scrap everything that isn't bolted down (and also most things that ARE bolted down), at least in the short term while the price of copper remains very volatile. Regarding the lasing incident in the Red Sea, these types of events happen very frequently. However, these more soft-targeting efforts are generally a good indicator for which way the wind is blowing in the international arena. Right now China is not very friendly with the west, but particularly the European Union at large. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z May 18, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: CRIME AND SHOOTING SPREES RUN RAMPANT IN UNITED STATES. VEHICLE RAMMING ATTACK REPORTED IN ITALY. WAR IN MIDDLE EAST CONTINUES AS STRIKES REPORTED AT EMIRATI NUCLEAR FACILITY. U.S. STRIKES ISIS LEADERSHIP IN NIGERIA. FUEL CRISIS RESULTS IN SHARP INCREASE IN SHIPPING PRICES WORLDWIDE.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Middle East: The situation remains as before, with most of the focus remaining on the restriction of travel through the Strait of Hormuz. As of this morning, all diplomatic efforts between the United States and Iran have failed to open the Strait, and traffic remains stagnant through the waterway. A handful of tankers have transited out of the Strait via the Iranian route, but Project Freedom has not resulted in any western-aligned merchants transiting the Strait since the initial skirmishes on it's first day. Around the region, limited targeting efforts continue to take place. Yesterday, the UAE reported drone strikes at the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in Al Dhafra. Three drones were detected and two were shot down, but one drone successfully stuck the compound. None of the reactors at the facility were breached, and no release of radiological material was reported. Nigeria: Hostilities have increased sharply over the past few days, with the United States conducting several airstrikes targeting ISIS facilities. President Trump himself announced the completion of a raid targeting Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, a senior commander within the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) insurgent group. Analyst Comment: Prior to a few days ago, the United States was only supporting Nigeria with intelligence and surveillance assets, and not openly engaging in the war themselves, at least as far as the public is concerned. The weekend raid on an ISIS stronghold is a major escalation of US involvement in the war, even though the mission may have initially been to capture al-Minuki. A good bit of reading between the lines is needed (along with a bit of speculation) to interpret what happened, as this announcement is different than other targeting efforts throughout the continent. The wording of all official reports implies that this was a ground operation to capture the leadership who had congregated together inside a compound. At some point, this ground operation transitioned to airstrikes taking out the target, with the High-Value Targets (HVTs) being killed during the strike. Speculating a bit, it's possible that when the ground force experienced significant resistance and everyone scattered from the meeting site on motorcycles, the US bombed the building and got al-Minuki by happenstance. This is a tale as old as time in the targeting world (especially in Africa), and aligns with the previous strikes within Sokoto, which targeted senior ISIS leadership in the same area back in December. Italy: Over the weekend a vehicle ramming attack was reported in Modena, as a terrorist rammed his vehicle into a crowd of people on Via Emilia Centro, a historic street in the center of town. A total of 10x people were wounded during the attack, with 4x victims remaining hospitalized in critical condition. The assailant has been identified as Salim El Koudri, and local authorities have not commented on motive. -HomeFront- Texas: Over the weekend a shooting spree was reported in Austin, as three suspects conducted approximately 12x small arms attacks around the city. The incident began Saturday with the theft of firearms from a local store, and also the theft of a vehicle from an apartment complex in north Austin. From there, the suspects conducted a joyride around the city, shooting at random citizens. One of the first targets was Fire Station 26 on Wentworth Drive, along with Fire Station 32 near Rollingwood. Throughout the city, over 20x different shooting calls were reported, with over 12x different shooting victims resulting from the shooting spree. At some point during the series of attacks from Saturday afternoon until Sunday morning, police made the connection that all of these attacks were related and involved the same suspects. A BOLO notice was put out by Austin PD, which was picked up by Manor Police Department, with one patrol officer visually observing the vehicle as the BOLO was put out on the radio. This immediately turned into a pursuit, with the suspects eventually crashing in a muddy field on state road 973, near a residential area in Manor. After the pursuit ended, the occupants of the vehicle scattered, and a large shelter-in-place order was issued while the manhunt was conducted to find the suspects. Two of the suspected shooters were captured immediately, a 17 year old and a 15 year old, both of which have long criminal records. A third suspect remained at large until nightfall, when he was discovered and arrested. California: This afternoon, an active shooter incident was reported at the Islamic Center of San Diego. Analyst Comment: No word yet on casualties or any other details yet as this is a developing situation. However, a media helicopter captured a video of a very clearly deceased individual located at the front entrance to the facility, so at least one person (possibly the shooter) was killed during the attack. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Around the world, fuel prices remain a growing concern. Over the past few days, sharp increases in the price of freight has been observed as the cost of diesel makes it more expensive to move cargo within the homeland. At the national level, the LMI Transportation index indicates that freight costs are the highest in recent memory, with the latest numbers for April being released and confirming what we already know...moving cargo is now extremely expensive. At the more operational level, this sharp increase in shipping costs can be seen with the price of moving a standard Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) shipping container. Before the war began, this container (on average) cost $980 to ship from China, to the Middle East (via the Red Sea route, not through the Strait of Hormuz). Right now, this same container costs about $4,131 to ship along the same route. During the COVID era, the maximum price observed was about $3,900 so as it stands, the oil shock has already impacted shipping costs more than COVID did. These costs are being observed right now within the United States both in terms of goods rising in price, but also availability. Throughout the Middle East, lots of talk continues and there isn't really any indicator for when this crisis might end. This afternoon, President Trump stated that the large-scale bombing of Iran was scheduled to continue tomorrow, but he has decided to hold off on the resumption of the war while a negotiated settlement is allegedly imminent. At the moment, it's not clear as to if this is just diplomatic posturing, or a genuine diplomatic effort. This exact situation was also alleged during the halt to Project Freedom, which stopped after one day due to a settlement that never came. In this case, this could be a negotiating tactic, but overall the war is certainly not over, and the effects of the war (i.e. the global petroleum crisis) remain largely unmitigated. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z July 17, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: GULF WAR ESCALATES AS INFRASTRUCTURE TARGETING BEGINS. SIGNIFICANT IRANIAN RETALIATION REPORTED ON AMERICAN INSTALLATIONS. IRANIAN TARGETING OF MERCHANT SHIPPING REMAINS CONSTANT.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: The war escalated again overnight, with the United States beginning the series of strikes on bridges and infrastructure targets intended to soften up areas near the coast of Iran. Several bridges were struck in the vicinity of Bandar Abbas, along with the usual nightly strikes on more military targets. On the Iranian side, the targeting of American installations has been substantial over the past few days. In Iraq, Iranian forces successfully struck the Patriot battery in Erbil, with satellite imagery indicating burn scars in the vicinity of where one launcher was previously located. In the UAE, a series of warehouses and probable weapons storage facilities were destroyed at the Zayed Military City. In Kuwait, one of the HIMARS launcher sites on the Iraqi border was targeted, in addition to a desalination plant providing the fresh water supply for Kuwait City. Persian Gulf: The war on the seas continued with many different strikes and incidents being reported around the region. At the northern end of the Gulf, the UKMTO reported an unidentified incident involving a merchant vessel, which was carried out by unknown parties and in the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea, several targeting efforts of merchant vessels was reported throughout the day. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Last night's targeting in Iran possibly offers up a clue as to what the military objective of this specific operation might be. The bridges that were struck by the United States are not specifically military targets, however they did offer high-speed avenues of approach to the coastline. If the IRGC ground force needed to reinforce specifically the area of the coastline to the west of Bandar Abbas, north of Qeshm Island, these would be the bridges they would need to use. The bridges that were taken out also would be a way of isolating Bandar Abbas in terms of trade. In addition to the naval base being a military target, this is also a major civilian port city that handles the import of a lot of cargo for the nation (some reports claim up to 80% of Iran's imports arrive at this port). Under normal circumstances, taking out bridges is a tricky subject in the world of military targeting; if the bridge is predominantly used for military purposes, it's usually a valid target, but if it's predominantly a civilian bridge it's not normally legal to target. This categorization gets really blurry really quickly, but what is very clear is that targeting infrastructure like this isolates the military objective into only a few possibilities. Either the United States is attempting to go scorched-earth on civilian infrastructure so as to make life as miserable as possible and thus attempt to turn the populace against the government...or this is pre-shaping fires for other operations that might take place in the vicinity of the coastline. Neither option makes a whole lot of tactical sense, but making sense has not been a prerequisite for any military objective sought so far during this conflict, so the continued targeting over the next few days will probably shed some light on what the objective is with this latest campaign. As of this afternoon, dozens of refueling tankers are once again making their way into the Middle East from Europe and beyond, so the war is likely to continue escalating for foreseeable future. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269 Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z July 17, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: GULF WAR ESCALATES AS INFRASTRUCTURE TARGETING BEGINS. SIGNIFICANT IRANIAN RETALIATION REPORTED ON AMERICAN INSTALLATIONS. IRANIAN TARGETING OF MERCHANT SHIPPING REMAINS CONSTANT.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: The war escalated again overnight, with the United States beginning the series of strikes on bridges and infrastructure targets intended to soften up areas near the coast of Iran. Several bridges were struck in the vicinity of Bandar Abbas, along with the usual nightly strikes on more military targets. On the Iranian side, the targeting of American installations has been substantial over the past few days. In Iraq, Iranian forces successfully struck the Patriot battery in Erbil, with satellite imagery indicating burn scars in the vicinity of where one launcher was previously located. In the UAE, a series of warehouses and probable weapons storage facilities were destroyed at the Zayed Military City. In Kuwait, one of the HIMARS launcher sites on the Iraqi border was targeted, in addition to a desalination plant providing the fresh water supply for Kuwait City. Persian Gulf: The war on the seas continued with many different strikes and incidents being reported around the region. At the northern end of the Gulf, the UKMTO reported an unidentified incident involving a merchant vessel, which was carried out by unknown parties and in the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea, several targeting efforts of merchant vessels was reported throughout the day. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Last night's targeting in Iran possibly offers up a clue as to what the military objective of this specific operation might be. The bridges that were struck by the United States are not specifically military targets, however they did offer high-speed avenues of approach to the coastline. If the IRGC ground force needed to reinforce specifically the area of the coastline to the west of Bandar Abbas, north of Qeshm Island, these would be the bridges they would need to use. The bridges that were taken out also would be a way of isolating Bandar Abbas in terms of trade. In addition to the naval base being a military target, this is also a major civilian port city that handles the import of a lot of cargo for the nation (some reports claim up to 80% of Iran's imports arrive at this port). Under normal circumstances, taking out bridges is a tricky subject in the world of military targeting; if the bridge is predominantly used for military purposes, it's usually a valid target, but if it's predominantly a civilian bridge it's not normally legal to target. This categorization gets really blurry really quickly, but what is very clear is that targeting infrastructure like this isolates the military objective into only a few possibilities. Either the United States is attempting to go scorched-earth on civilian infrastructure so as to make life as miserable as possible and thus attempt to turn the populace against the government...or this is pre-shaping fires for other operations that might take place in the vicinity of the coastline. Neither option makes a whole lot of tactical sense, but making sense has not been a prerequisite for any military objective sought so far during this conflict, so the continued targeting over the next few days will probably shed some light on what the objective is with this latest campaign. As of this afternoon, dozens of refueling tankers are once again making their way into the Middle East from Europe and beyond, so the war is likely to continue escalating for foreseeable future. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269 Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z June 25, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: TWO MAJOR EARTHQUAKES STRIKE VENEZUELA, WIDESPREAD DEVASTATION REPORTED. SEPARATE EARTHQUAKE STRIKES JAPAN. HORMUZ CRISIS CONTINUES AS IRAN STRIKES MERCHANT FOR TAKING UNAUTHORIZED ROUTE THROUGH STRAIT. OIL PRODUCTION SHUT DOWN IN IRAQ DUE TO LACK OF TANKERS TO OFFLOAD CRUDE.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Venezuela: Yesterday afternoon two major earthquakes struck just west of Caracas. The first earthquake struck shortly after 4:00pm local time, and was estimated to be a magnitude of 7.2. Less than one minute later, a separate earthquake struck in nearly the same area, measuring a magnitude of 7.5. Widespread destruction has been reported throughout La Guaira, the coastal metropolitan area that was closest to the epicenter of the quakes. Many structures within Caracas also experienced heavy damage, or were destroyed outright by the earthquakes, and major rescue and recovery operations are underway. Analyst Comment: This disaster is already one of the worst ever recorded in South America, and so far the casualty count is expected to be in the thousands. Right now, the latest figures estimate roughly 11,000 missing with thousands of people currently entrapped within collapsed buildings. Due to the complete devastation throughout much of the region, the true scale of yesterday's earthquakes may take some time to become known, though the videos that have emerged so far indicate devastation on an unfathomable scale. Japan: Overnight, another earthquake was reported off the coast of the northern province of Iwate. An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.2 struck just offshore, however not much damage was reported due to the remote nature of the epicenter. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In the Middle East, the situation has become complicated on multiple fronts. Firstly, the peace talks continue, which at this point is good news all on it's own, even if rhetoric has been flying all around. None of this rhetoric is trustworthy at the moment, but progress appears to be made toward solidifying a final deal. Another point of confusion or contention over the past 24 hours has been the complicated management of the Strait of Hormuz. Oil is flowing to some degree, and though the number of tankers transiting crude out of the Gulf is nowhere near historic norms, progress is progress. This progress was briefly derailed this morning, after Iranian forces conducted a drone strike on one vessel which was attempting to take the southern route through Omani waters. Ships have been disregarding Iranian demands to take the northern route for a few days, and this morning Iranian patience apparently ran out, and one vessel was hit. How the US responds to this will be notable, but right now the complicating factors are the discrepancies of which routes are being used by ships. More broadly, global oil futures have fallen sharply since the announcement of the MOU being signed, and gas prices are subsequently falling. However, gas prices still remain at around $4.00 per gallon nationwide, because there is still a large discrepancy between the *futures* prices, and the actual *delivery* price of crude that is being pumped off of tankers into the United States right now. As a result it is important to understand how long this recovery process will take. For instance, yesterday the West Qurna 2 petroleum facility in Iraq (one of the largest oil fields in the world) had to shut down production, because their storage tanks are full, and there are no tankers available to load onto for export. This is simply due to timing...nothing moves fast when it comes to moving tankers around the world. This is why the world may breathe a sigh of relief that the war appears to be over at this point, but we're not out of the woods just yet. The next major questions will be whether or not the complex balance of oil production and maritime shipping can stabilize before the more serious impacts arrive. And now that the Iranians have continued to demonstrate that they are willing to enforce their control of the Strait with explosives, this crisis is certainly not over. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z June 25, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: TWO MAJOR EARTHQUAKES STRIKE VENEZUELA, WIDESPREAD DEVASTATION REPORTED. SEPARATE EARTHQUAKE STRIKES JAPAN. HORMUZ CRISIS CONTINUES AS IRAN STRIKES MERCHANT FOR TAKING UNAUTHORIZED ROUTE THROUGH STRAIT. OIL PRODUCTION SHUT DOWN IN IRAQ DUE TO LACK OF TANKERS TO OFFLOAD CRUDE.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Venezuela: Yesterday afternoon two major earthquakes struck just west of Caracas. The first earthquake struck shortly after 4:00pm local time, and was estimated to be a magnitude of 7.2. Less than one minute later, a separate earthquake struck in nearly the same area, measuring a magnitude of 7.5. Widespread destruction has been reported throughout La Guaira, the coastal metropolitan area that was closest to the epicenter of the quakes. Many structures within Caracas also experienced heavy damage, or were destroyed outright by the earthquakes, and major rescue and recovery operations are underway. Analyst Comment: This disaster is already one of the worst ever recorded in South America, and so far the casualty count is expected to be in the thousands. Right now, the latest figures estimate roughly 11,000 missing with thousands of people currently entrapped within collapsed buildings. Due to the complete devastation throughout much of the region, the true scale of yesterday's earthquakes may take some time to become known, though the videos that have emerged so far indicate devastation on an unfathomable scale. Japan: Overnight, another earthquake was reported off the coast of the northern province of Iwate. An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.2 struck just offshore, however not much damage was reported due to the remote nature of the epicenter. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In the Middle East, the situation has become complicated on multiple fronts. Firstly, the peace talks continue, which at this point is good news all on it's own, even if rhetoric has been flying all around. None of this rhetoric is trustworthy at the moment, but progress appears to be made toward solidifying a final deal. Another point of confusion or contention over the past 24 hours has been the complicated management of the Strait of Hormuz. Oil is flowing to some degree, and though the number of tankers transiting crude out of the Gulf is nowhere near historic norms, progress is progress. This progress was briefly derailed this morning, after Iranian forces conducted a drone strike on one vessel which was attempting to take the southern route through Omani waters. Ships have been disregarding Iranian demands to take the northern route for a few days, and this morning Iranian patience apparently ran out, and one vessel was hit. How the US responds to this will be notable, but right now the complicating factors are the discrepancies of which routes are being used by ships. More broadly, global oil futures have fallen sharply since the announcement of the MOU being signed, and gas prices are subsequently falling. However, gas prices still remain at around $4.00 per gallon nationwide, because there is still a large discrepancy between the *futures* prices, and the actual *delivery* price of crude that is being pumped off of tankers into the United States right now. As a result it is important to understand how long this recovery process will take. For instance, yesterday the West Qurna 2 petroleum facility in Iraq (one of the largest oil fields in the world) had to shut down production, because their storage tanks are full, and there are no tankers available to load onto for export. This is simply due to timing...nothing moves fast when it comes to moving tankers around the world. This is why the world may breathe a sigh of relief that the war appears to be over at this point, but we're not out of the woods just yet. The next major questions will be whether or not the complex balance of oil production and maritime shipping can stabilize before the more serious impacts arrive. And now that the Iranians have continued to demonstrate that they are willing to enforce their control of the Strait with explosives, this crisis is certainly not over. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z June 12, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: BELFAST RIOTS CONTINUE. MASS SHOOTING REPORTED IN TEXAS. RHETORIC AND DIPLOMATIC TENSIONS REMAIN AS TALK OF POTENTIAL SETTLEMENT CONTINUES REGARDING WAR IN MIDDLE EAST.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: Last night, Iranian state media released some details of the alleged Memorandum of Understanding which is allegedly being considered by Iran and the United States. 40 minutes after the opening bell on Wall Street this morning, President Trump announced on social media that the terms of the alleged Memorandum of Understanding as leaked by the Iranians are not what has been discussed privately. No details were provided on what items were disputed. Scotland: Yesterday, Ilia Belov and Nadjedzha Belov were both convicted of "threatening or abusing behavior" toward four girls who were at the center of a major scandal last year. As it turns out, the initial claims made by the legendary Hatchet-Girl were true; this brother-sister team were attempting to target the girls, and when they resisted being attacked, the Belov family called the police and complained of racism. This prompted the now-viral video recording by which the girls defended themselves with knives and hatchets. This court case confirmed that the girls were telling the truth about being assaulted, as CCTV footage which exonerated them was initially ignored by Police Scotland, but was uncovered during the trial. -HomeFront- Texas: This afternoon an active shooter incident was reported in Midland after unknown circumstances resulted in a protracted firefight on West Wall Street. Local authorities first announced the situation as a barricaded shooter incident, as an individual began firing at passersby from a structure near an old veterinary clinic. Around a dozen people were wounded in some manner during shooting, and the shooter was killed at the scene. The suspect has been identified as Victor Mata Villarreal. Analyst Comment: The circumstances of this shooting are sketchy at best. The area is not a crowded venue that is the normal target for mass shooters, and the exact location of the shooting has not yet been disclosed. It's possible that the shooter was concealed in a fighting position inside the abandoned veterinary clinic, and was shooting at passing cars on the highway, however this is pure speculation based on the geolocation of videos taken at the scene. Some reports claim that Villarreal was a Mexican national with a visa-overstay, but this is not confirmed at this time. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In the Middle East, rhetoric on all sides has continued overnight, and parsing all of the latest developments is challenging due to many contradictions flying around. As of this report, some sort of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is allegedly ready to be signed on Sunday. This MOU is reportedly not a peace deal, but a formalization of the ceasefire that was supposed to be implemented this entire time. These types of documents are fairly standard in the world of diplomacy as it's generally a waste of time to send diplomats around the world to engage in talks, if neither side is at least in the ballpark when it comes to what they might accept. An MOU being signed is a step toward peace, but it's not a peace deal itself. So far, the United States has not been entirely forthcoming regarding the details, but as of early this morning, President Trump has refuted the plan that the Iranians have leaked. However, in the absence of any clarification or details of the plan being disclosed, we have to go off of what the Iranians are claiming for now. The grand question remains...what's on the table for negotiations? First and foremost, the alleged MOU results in a 60-day extension of the alleged ceasefire, which is a period of time that will be used to work toward a final deal. Mostly, the MOU includes the 14-point plan that is very similar to what's already been discussed. The nuclear issue is allegedly not being addressed in this memorandum and Iran's missile program is completely off the table altogether. The Iranians would open the Strait, but retain control of it. Funds that have been frozen by the United States would be released to the Iranians, and the status of the long-standing array of sanctions would be worked out during the 60-day extension period. As far as what the United States will get in return, it does not seem like much, which is probably why President Trump denied the details of this leak this morning. The Strait of Hormuz being opened to allow American and other western-aligned vessels through would be the only real bone for the United States, but there is also talk of including some of the "magic dirt" (allegedly radioactive debris from the Midnight Hammer strikes), though this has not been clarified as of yet. It's almost certain that the neither the U.S. nor Israel would accept this deal as it stands, but until the US reveals what they claim their terms are, all of the rhetoric of the past few days leaves the situation exactly as it's been for months. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z June 12, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: BELFAST RIOTS CONTINUE. MASS SHOOTING REPORTED IN TEXAS. RHETORIC AND DIPLOMATIC TENSIONS REMAIN AS TALK OF POTENTIAL SETTLEMENT CONTINUES REGARDING WAR IN MIDDLE EAST.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: Last night, Iranian state media released some details of the alleged Memorandum of Understanding which is allegedly being considered by Iran and the United States. 40 minutes after the opening bell on Wall Street this morning, President Trump announced on social media that the terms of the alleged Memorandum of Understanding as leaked by the Iranians are not what has been discussed privately. No details were provided on what items were disputed. Scotland: Yesterday, Ilia Belov and Nadjedzha Belov were both convicted of "threatening or abusing behavior" toward four girls who were at the center of a major scandal last year. As it turns out, the initial claims made by the legendary Hatchet-Girl were true; this brother-sister team were attempting to target the girls, and when they resisted being attacked, the Belov family called the police and complained of racism. This prompted the now-viral video recording by which the girls defended themselves with knives and hatchets. This court case confirmed that the girls were telling the truth about being assaulted, as CCTV footage which exonerated them was initially ignored by Police Scotland, but was uncovered during the trial. -HomeFront- Texas: This afternoon an active shooter incident was reported in Midland after unknown circumstances resulted in a protracted firefight on West Wall Street. Local authorities first announced the situation as a barricaded shooter incident, as an individual began firing at passersby from a structure near an old veterinary clinic. Around a dozen people were wounded in some manner during shooting, and the shooter was killed at the scene. The suspect has been identified as Victor Mata Villarreal. Analyst Comment: The circumstances of this shooting are sketchy at best. The area is not a crowded venue that is the normal target for mass shooters, and the exact location of the shooting has not yet been disclosed. It's possible that the shooter was concealed in a fighting position inside the abandoned veterinary clinic, and was shooting at passing cars on the highway, however this is pure speculation based on the geolocation of videos taken at the scene. Some reports claim that Villarreal was a Mexican national with a visa-overstay, but this is not confirmed at this time. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In the Middle East, rhetoric on all sides has continued overnight, and parsing all of the latest developments is challenging due to many contradictions flying around. As of this report, some sort of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is allegedly ready to be signed on Sunday. This MOU is reportedly not a peace deal, but a formalization of the ceasefire that was supposed to be implemented this entire time. These types of documents are fairly standard in the world of diplomacy as it's generally a waste of time to send diplomats around the world to engage in talks, if neither side is at least in the ballpark when it comes to what they might accept. An MOU being signed is a step toward peace, but it's not a peace deal itself. So far, the United States has not been entirely forthcoming regarding the details, but as of early this morning, President Trump has refuted the plan that the Iranians have leaked. However, in the absence of any clarification or details of the plan being disclosed, we have to go off of what the Iranians are claiming for now. The grand question remains...what's on the table for negotiations? First and foremost, the alleged MOU results in a 60-day extension of the alleged ceasefire, which is a period of time that will be used to work toward a final deal. Mostly, the MOU includes the 14-point plan that is very similar to what's already been discussed. The nuclear issue is allegedly not being addressed in this memorandum and Iran's missile program is completely off the table altogether. The Iranians would open the Strait, but retain control of it. Funds that have been frozen by the United States would be released to the Iranians, and the status of the long-standing array of sanctions would be worked out during the 60-day extension period. As far as what the United States will get in return, it does not seem like much, which is probably why President Trump denied the details of this leak this morning. The Strait of Hormuz being opened to allow American and other western-aligned vessels through would be the only real bone for the United States, but there is also talk of including some of the "magic dirt" (allegedly radioactive debris from the Midnight Hammer strikes), though this has not been clarified as of yet. It's almost certain that the neither the U.S. nor Israel would accept this deal as it stands, but until the US reveals what they claim their terms are, all of the rhetoric of the past few days leaves the situation exactly as it's been for months. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z June 26, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: RESCUE EFFORTS CONTINUE IN VENEZUELA AS INTERNATIONAL DISASTER AID EFFORTS BEGIN. HORMUZ CRISIS REMAINS TENSE AS IRANIAN TARGETING OF MERCHANT SHIPPING CONTINUES.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: This morning another vessel was struck by Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz. A total of four drones were reportedly launched during this attack, with the White House claiming that three of the four munitions were intercepted. Analyst Comment: These targeting efforts have resulted in the International Maritime Organization pausing their rescue plan to ensure the orderly evacuation of the Persian Gulf, though as of this afternoon the status of the Strait can only be described as a state of chaos. Some vessels have turned around after being warned by the Iranians, or just based on the news of other ships getting hit. Other vessels have gone "full-send" and sprinted through the Strait, hoping for the best. What has not materialized, has been a measurable surge of traffic *into* the Gulf. Right now, most ships are trying to get out of the warzone when they can be reasonably sure that it's safe to do so, and though there have been ships moving back-and-forth through the Strait, traffic is still nowhere near pre-war levels. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In Venezuela, rescue and recovery efforts continue throughout the country following the earthquakes which devastated the capital and several other major metropolitan areas. USSOUTHCOM has activated disaster response plans to allocate military resources for recovery efforts and other Central/South American nations are also working on large-scale mobilization of disaster aid. Major earthquakes in the global south tend to be vastly more serious than anywhere else due to poor construction standards, and Venezuela is no exception. On the ground, the hardest hit areas are the coastal region of La Guaira, as well as the capital of Caracas. Nearly every single structure and high-rise building at the tourist resorts along the coast north of Simon Bolivar Airport have either been completely destroyed, or heavily damaged. Hundreds of people remain trapped in the town of Carabelleda, with many large buildings collapsing with little warning for residents. Along the coast to the west, the town of Macuto suffered a similar fate, with many people still being trapped inside collapsed buildings. At this early hour, casualty counts are hard to assess, however the USGS estimates that there is a 74% chance that the casualty figure is at least 10,000 and that there's a 30% chance that the fatalities top 100,000 victims. Right now, it's very obvious that the 10,000-victim figure is the conservative assessment, certainly in terms of total victims (either injured or deceased). The United Nations estimated around 50,000 persons missing as of this afternoon. Officially, the total casualty figure is 971 confirmed fatalities, however this is not only certain to rise over the next few weeks, but new casualties are also extremely likely as well. Nearly all of the high-rise apartment buildings which are still technically standing are exhibiting the telltale signs of major structural compromise, such as X-shaped and stair-shaped cracking in the masonry and concrete walls. These are usually major indicators of severe structural damage, and that the risk of the building collapsing is extremely high. However, most people are still living inside these compromised structures, despite the very high likelihood that more high-rises will collapse imminently. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z June 26, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: RESCUE EFFORTS CONTINUE IN VENEZUELA AS INTERNATIONAL DISASTER AID EFFORTS BEGIN. HORMUZ CRISIS REMAINS TENSE AS IRANIAN TARGETING OF MERCHANT SHIPPING CONTINUES.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: This morning another vessel was struck by Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz. A total of four drones were reportedly launched during this attack, with the White House claiming that three of the four munitions were intercepted. Analyst Comment: These targeting efforts have resulted in the International Maritime Organization pausing their rescue plan to ensure the orderly evacuation of the Persian Gulf, though as of this afternoon the status of the Strait can only be described as a state of chaos. Some vessels have turned around after being warned by the Iranians, or just based on the news of other ships getting hit. Other vessels have gone "full-send" and sprinted through the Strait, hoping for the best. What has not materialized, has been a measurable surge of traffic *into* the Gulf. Right now, most ships are trying to get out of the warzone when they can be reasonably sure that it's safe to do so, and though there have been ships moving back-and-forth through the Strait, traffic is still nowhere near pre-war levels. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In Venezuela, rescue and recovery efforts continue throughout the country following the earthquakes which devastated the capital and several other major metropolitan areas. USSOUTHCOM has activated disaster response plans to allocate military resources for recovery efforts and other Central/South American nations are also working on large-scale mobilization of disaster aid. Major earthquakes in the global south tend to be vastly more serious than anywhere else due to poor construction standards, and Venezuela is no exception. On the ground, the hardest hit areas are the coastal region of La Guaira, as well as the capital of Caracas. Nearly every single structure and high-rise building at the tourist resorts along the coast north of Simon Bolivar Airport have either been completely destroyed, or heavily damaged. Hundreds of people remain trapped in the town of Carabelleda, with many large buildings collapsing with little warning for residents. Along the coast to the west, the town of Macuto suffered a similar fate, with many people still being trapped inside collapsed buildings. At this early hour, casualty counts are hard to assess, however the USGS estimates that there is a 74% chance that the casualty figure is at least 10,000 and that there's a 30% chance that the fatalities top 100,000 victims. Right now, it's very obvious that the 10,000-victim figure is the conservative assessment, certainly in terms of total victims (either injured or deceased). The United Nations estimated around 50,000 persons missing as of this afternoon. Officially, the total casualty figure is 971 confirmed fatalities, however this is not only certain to rise over the next few weeks, but new casualties are also extremely likely as well. Nearly all of the high-rise apartment buildings which are still technically standing are exhibiting the telltale signs of major structural compromise, such as X-shaped and stair-shaped cracking in the masonry and concrete walls. These are usually major indicators of severe structural damage, and that the risk of the building collapsing is extremely high. However, most people are still living inside these compromised structures, despite the very high likelihood that more high-rises will collapse imminently. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground so as you can probably guess we've got some pretty big news today um today we are launching our youtube channel so this is something that a lot of people have been asking us to do for a long time um we have had a podcast for quite a few months now and it's been working out quite well but we understand that some people aren't really about the whole podcast format and don't necessarily like um like just listening to someone they're more visual learners so we thought that we would create a youtube channel that helped us host some of our more visual content so today we are launching that youtube channel with this with the topic of workplace safety more specifically how to egress from a building so if you're watching this on youtube you'll be able to see uh this this powerpoint that we created you know we're analysts so of course we had to revert back to a powerpoint for our first video but if you're listening to this to the audio of this on the um on the podcast we'll try to do our best to visualize what's going on on the screen but if you're listening to us on the podcast we highly recommend you go over and check us out on youtube because then you'll be able to sort of understand what we're talking about we wanted to pick a topic you know that's once again a very visual thing that we can't exactly explain in a podcast format so workplace safety why are we talking about workplace safety um well for one this is sort of a topic we've been working around internally for a long time now because it's a topic that is not often talked about right it's very rarely mentioned in the military community it's very rarely mentioned in the prepping community it's really not even mentioned in a sort of taboo a lot of times to talk about within the emergency preparedness community because a lot of times the emergency preparedness community is based off of existing government guidance and as we'll find out that's not necessarily the best thing to resort to in a time of crisis like this so our goal here is to have a data-driven approach um we are going to tackle quite a few uh questions and problems we're not um going to try to theorize whether or not you should evacuate or or how you should handle things in your own uh life mostly because we're not experts right so we're trying to create a process we're trying to examine things from an empirical standpoint and figure out how we can best point out things that you maybe haven't thought about yet basically this whole video is going to be about different considerations that you can go about right so you know as we stated you know this is not going to be a strictly a gearless video we're not going to list out a whole bunch of gear that you are going to need this is more of a considerations type video we will cover gear of course but we're not here to sell a product we don't get endorsed by anybody and for the most part that's going to be on you you're just going to be on you to figure out how to address the problems that we're going to lay out so once again like we said we're not experts not by any means but we do have some common sense right we're not able to perhaps contribute to producing a peer-reviewed scientific journal article on you know emergency escape and and things like that but we are able to use some data right we don't have to be scientists to understand the scientific method and sort of loosely use that as a guide for how to be just be better about preparing for these types of things right so that's really our goal is to not necessarily use you know it would take years to go through a a scientific study of all emergency situations and and then dissect them all and then figure out what's going on with each one of them and then provide recommendations so we're sort of applying both some scientific knowledge and some historical knowledge as well as a lot of common sense and what we think works so that's why we're going to kind of weave back and forth between historical records and what we think so and this is why one of the big things that we've run into is that a lot of research you know hundreds and hundreds of of pages and and hundreds of journal articles have been written about even just minute emergency situations and disasters everything from terrorist attacks to hurricanes have been researched heavily in depth the response has been and the research has been conducted by experts as as it should right the research has been conducted by experts in the field and it's for experts so it's conducted four experts by experts um research has also been conducted by experts to help civilians chances of survival so you've got experts trying to determine what's best for a civilian to figure out uh their way and you know how can the lay person better understand a complex situation some such as some of these emergencies that have come upon us but very very little very little uh research has been conducted by individuals on an individual basis to help their individual chance of survival so that's what we kind of hope to tackle today we're laypersons when it comes to emergency management we do have a little bit of experience you know community emergency response teams cert teams you know so various medical training throughout the you know over the years as well as austere environment medicine so um we're not exactly um strict newbies but we're not experts in any way we cannot give a lot of the advice that has been given by experts on this so we're just going to take you through our thought process and sort of what we do now that of course is going to vary right so we're our goal with this is once again to trigger thoughts and considerations for you so one of the good ways to do this is the good old risk management matrix now i know a lot of you are probably going to be triggered by this graphic as well you should be because it's kind of a thing that gets annoying over time but it's a really good way for examining risk so for those that have not um sort of figured out what this is you can research it on your own time but in short it's a chart that describes the likelihood of an activity on a scale of one to five uh you know from rare to almost certain combined with the consequences or the impact of that thing happening such as once again on a one to five scale such as from insignificant up to catastrophic so let's put this into a format that we can all kind of understand so this was our sort of risk management matrix um this is this one we created just for this video but this is similar to what our daily lives were like uh when we when we lived in the remote coastal pacific northwest area so we we lived there for a few years up in the [Music] washington state area and as you can see a few things were more prevalent than others for instance we can look at landslides for us in our specific area landslides had a medium impact but the likelihood that they would happen was very very high because we were in a remote area so as such the risk for a landslide happening would be high so when we when we understand that um when we put these sort of disaster scenarios and and um and circumstances on a chart like the risk management matrix we realize that things shift around a lot so depending on where you're at things could be a lot different such as when we move to the urban coastal mid-atlantic area so as you can see from the chart all of these things switched around a lot so suddenly landslides became a very low likelihood and also a low impact if they were to happen because we're not in a mountainous area and there's so many roads that it's almost it's extremely unlikely that any uh that our transit would be totally cut off whereas in the pacific northwest landslides could take out the only road going back to our house so um that's sort of what we are are focusing on now as you can see uh in the upper right hand corner of this chart the uh the thing that that we're sort of most concerned about now is uh civil unrest the likelihood that will happen in our specific area is very very high and the impact that it could have is very high so for us civil unrest at this point in time is an extreme risk now that's also uh leads into the point that over time these things change you know risk and the things you need to prepare for changes sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis right so like for instance you know two hours before the minneapolis riots kicked off two hours before those videotapes were released and just using minneapolis as an example the threat of civil unrest was extremely low right but as soon as those videotapes were released and that night fight and that night fell on that same exact day things got really really bad so that goes to show that there's a lot of variables that go into how risk works and once you get kind of an understanding on that once you sort of start thinking in the terms of risk management right it it helps you prepare your response and of course we don't you know that's not to say that you should just memorize the earth's management chart and then just be a a government robot like a lot of us are taught to be when it comes to osha and things like that you know that shouldn't happen as well you should you know think sometimes things aren't going to be on the chart right and sometimes sometimes you need to prepare for things that exactly that don't exactly have a risk they can't you know be be categorized by a number or a color or a chart so that is you know the one caveat to the risk management matrix and so then we come to this um this is of course an image that many people will be familiar with and this is the world trade center uh collapse so we're not going to get into the conspiracy theories or anything like that today we're just talking about the actual result the the actual uh result of the collapse and the reason that we're using the world trade center disaster as a good bench point for a lot of this is number one we have a lot of data we have so much data that it's almost impossible for one person to analyze over a period of time so the world trade center has been heavily studied by literally thousands of people from dozens of agencies and so we have a lot of understanding as to what went down when it comes to the actual impact of the planes the impact of the fires things like that so that's why we're using the world trade center as a good good jumping off point because a lot of the deaths that came from the world trade center by a lot of the reports that came out afterwards were definitely preventable so obviously the people that were living in the direct impact zone of the aircraft that was not a survivable situation but a lot of this a lot of the casualties that occurred we're not entirely sure how many right but we can say that the number of people that could have been saved but weren't is significant so um but you know once again we're not just prevented we're not just talking about you know 911 the absolute worst case scenario a complex multi multi-layered um covert attack on u.s soil that no one was expecting we're also talking about things like the grenfell tower fire of 14 june 2017 in the uk that was a simple a fire residential fire in an apartment building that started when a refrigerator caught fire but that fire spread very very quickly to the rest of the building almost immediately and it resulted in 72 deaths and only 223 people escaping now if you look at the ratio of deaths to escapees that's a very high number of people that died from this tower and the investigation is still ongoing because it turns out that a lot of the cladding on the side of the building played a big impact on it and as you can see here um just a simple peruse of wikipedia can find out that uh a lot of other fires have been started a lot of them resulting in fatalities due to the exact same construction features the exact same uh violent safety violations that occurred in grenfell tower also started fires in other buildings around the world from you know south korea to new jersey the same the same construction technique and the same factors that led to the casualties in the grenfell tower are present around the world so that just goes to show that we're not necessarily planning for a complex multi-layered massive terrorist attack but we're also planning on something that's a little bit more likely even just just the other day one of our writers sent us a message saying hey look my refrigerator caught fire in my house i mean literally you know there was some kind of leak it was just sitting there in the kitchen and i was working at the kitchen table on a report i was writing and i turned around and i smelled something like a you know like like rubber burning it turned around and there's smoke coming out from behind my refrigerator so these things can happen to you every day we don't necessarily are trying to say that 911 is something we should be prepared for every day we're also trying to prevent normal things like building fires so as one might expect this this video is really heavy uh on the fire and that's for a few reasons um we've become i suppose the word is slightly more paranoid after our local riots swept through our area and it's because of fire um so we can defend ourselves against you know armed invaders we can defend ourselves against you know people throwing rocks and bricks and stuff but one of the things that cannot be stopped by us alone is fire right so we're heavily reliant almost totally reliant on the fire department um to help us out with that and we as we saw in our local area and it was widely publicized in not just our area but also in minneapolis where it all started but also in new york atlanta california firefighters being attacked with bricks and molotov cocktails because they were trying to put out fires and the rioters were trying to burn as many things to the ground as possible so for us fire is a huge deal and as a result we learn we learn a lot from firefighters themselves right firefighters are are extremely good sources of information because fires have been going on for quite literally millennia and as such the technologies and firefighting and the especially the personal escape procedures have trained have changed radically so as we see here in this image we have a firefighter that is practicing egressing from a window on an upper story building and that's where we're going to spend the bulk of our time talking about our system for that because one of the things that not a lot of people are talking about we haven't seen anyone talk about this within the sort of um prepping type emergency preparedness community with the exception of one source has mentioned it and we'll talk about that in a second but this is a thing that goes on in every fire department in america and it's firefighter egress systems basically this is a a rather large pouch that they put in the pocket of their turnout coat that basically allows them to within just a few seconds escape a room and rappel down to the ground from a window and it's something that's very interesting to study and worth looking into more so if you want more information about this i highly recommend you look up firefighter egress systems it is a very very fascinating subject to delve into even if you you're not a firefighter it's something that's very interesting to do if especially especially if you work or live in a building that's say two or three stories or even taller than that um which you know we do we live in air and work in buildings which are more than one story so it's something to keep in mind especially for that so so this is essentially what the goal is and this is a photo of a firefighter that's egressing from a structure that's on fire he was unable to egress out of the room any other way and he's forced to use his last resort which is to go out the window and we don't want to see the repeat of you know the very infamous people that have been videotaped and photographed jumping from high-rise buildings because the fire was just too much we don't want that we we want to have at least some last ditch it may not be survivable right as you'll see when we get into this the firefighter escape system and egress package that we've sort of created is not foolproof by any means it is not something that you train on unless you are in a very controlled environment it is a very very much a last-ditch method but it is infinitely better than simply just jumping out the window and hoping for the best so uh one of the big things that we're also thinking about that no one seems to be talking about are the covid procedures and mitigations so one of the big trends that's going around in literally every single profession is these coveted barriers so as we see here in this image this is a a gem that has become very famous for setting up individual workstations uh workout stations that have you know they're basically just cubes of pvc tubing with plastic um set up all the way around them and to in order to for people to be able to work out without wearing a mask or something like that now on the face of this this may sound like a you know you can debate whether or not this is a good or bad thing however no one seems to be considering um that this is in fact a um very big fire risk um so let's just take this image here and let's darken it for a second so imagine that you're in a fire and of course the power is going to go out because the fire department the first thing they're going to do is cut power to the building so your lights are going to go out all right so it's going to get darker okay well now let's add in some smoke well you see how hard it is to be able to locate the doors and exits much less having to deal with you know multi-mill plastic that you can and plastic tubing that you can get entangled in so that's a big concern especially considering that our children are now being affected by this so this photo shows a lot of the procedures that classrooms are taking now we could not find an actual photograph of our local elementary school and primary schools which have the actual full cages around the children but we do have this artist's rendition of you know the new procedures for basically doing the same thing with these little cubes and sort of cages put around each child's desk and the child goes inside the plastic barrier and they are able to you know do their schoolwork without a mask on well here's the thing um this this plastic sheeting is not easy to tear through with your bare hands like you need a knife to cut through it especially if you can't get a good purchase on it if you're in duress if you can't see if you're panicking if you're already tired and sleepy you know sleep deprived you're already fatigued from having to run down multiple you know stairwells it's not going to be easy to to to cut through a lot of this stuff and then we also see which this image shows um a lot of the a lot of grocery stores and a lot of workplaces and businesses are now barricading their doors right if you've gone to a grocery store in america or even you know canada or you know with our brothers across the pond um over in the uk or in europe chances are you go into a grocery store they're going to tell you to go in one way and exit one way and in this case in this image of walmart they've actually stacked carts up in front of one of the doors to prevent entry and exit from it you know so that you can only enter one way well what happens if that door becomes suddenly an emergency exit can people run through that barrier of carts no they can't right so you create a bottleneck at the door and that just leads to more fatalities so when we go to our grocery store and we look around and we see that they've you know they've actually moved a lot of the grocery store aisles to um cover up a lot of exits and allow and not allow freedom of movement within the store we think you know how is this not a fire hazard and um it turns out that fire departments agree with us a lot of fire departments well i wouldn't say a lot of fire departments but several fire fire districts and fire commanders around the uh around the us have put out have put out social media posts citing that you have to make sure that you're still abiding by the fire code with all of these coveted procedures so this particular fire department put out a facebook page that said you know that says hey you know shower curtains guess what they're extremely flammable and prone to entrapping people so that's a that's a big concern for us right because this plastic sheeting is everywhere and here's the plastic sheeting that we're talking about a lot of this plastic sheeting is actually made can be bought at lowe's as you can see right here from the screenshot but you can also tell that it's made out of this little material called polyethylene and if we bring up our old magic google machine we can find a lot of different research that finds out that plastic sheeting made from polyethylene will burn big time when it hits by when it's hit by flames so the polyester the polyethylene plastic sheeting that is used in a lot of places is extremely extremely flammable so you've got a lot of times with these covered procedures plastic sheeting it's an entrapment hazard that's also flammable oh and burning plastic also sticks to your skin and you're now creating a an entrapment hazard combined with another fire hazard so that's kind of a big concern for us that we haven't seen anybody talk about within the community so we just wanted to kind of share that and get you thinking about these things because it is a big concern right and another concern that we sort of can't ignore is um conflict right so this is um more addressed to those um workplace concerns and a lot of the things that we're drawing on for this particular bit is the a study that was done by the university of sussex entitled the mass psychology of disasters and emergency evacuations a research report and implications for practice it was written by and compiled by dr john drury and dr chris cocking of once again the department of psychology university of sussex and a lot of the data we recommend you go ahead and download this and read it i think it was written in 2007 so it's not the newest information done on this but it does show and it does bring up a lot of interesting points and one of the interesting points it brings up is how to better communicate with people during a disaster if you're the government agency that's responding to a disaster how to communicate with people in such a way that they'll believe you because as we can see here by this article one of the big concerns on 9 11 this article was written by the way i think two days after 9 11. one of the big concerns were people being extremely angry the survivors of it were being were angry after not immediately after 9 11 because the port authority uh told everyone to go back inside the building because we have to remember what actually happened during 9 11. one you know the world trade center uh when the first tower was hit there were a lot there was a lot of debris falling from that first tower so people were told to stay inside because it was the conventional wisdom was that even for a plain impact on the world trade center it was safer inside the building because people had already been killed that morning from falling debris and big shards of glass and and steel girders that were falling that were the size of vehicles so the port authority and a lot of the fire chiefs and a lot of the authorities that were responding to the initial aircraft impact were telling people to go back inside we have multiple multiple stories i'll just read this one right quick um but he told the observer that as he ran downstairs i heard people being told the building is secure the safest place is inside stay calm and do not leave that's what they were saying they were telling people to go back up to their offices and their desks like the building was not in danger right so that's just one story of many in fact here's another story this is more well known um this is the story of um stanley primeknith which i'm sure butchering that name but um that's how i believe it's pronounced um and we'll just read that one right quick for those listening on the podcast that primeknit had initially evacuated the building after the first plane had hit the north tower but was told to go back inside once he had arrived back at his office on the 81st floor he was on the phone when he noticed the second plane coming right at him he screamed and jumped under his desk as the plane was hitting the building after the impact primenoth found himself alive under his desk with only minor injuries stanley primeknith was a hero that day because he helped a stranger get egress out of the building because after that happened he of course egressed and you can read his story on your own but the point is is that he was he was outside the building he was on the street right he was safe and they told him to go back inside and he made it up 81 floors while there was a major terrorist attack in progress because he didn't know any better right and he was a very very lucky man that day because the plane hit below him and he was able to egress down past it during through the one staircase that had not been completely destroyed so um just little things like this are things that we're trying to to help people to think about so and that sort of leads us to this point of you know thinking do i need to evacuate even though my boss and the police say not to and that's something that you're going to have to evaluate for yourself because as we all know despite what people write in reports and despite what people say on tv and and romanticize things afterwards um we do have to remember that not every employing agency abides by osha right they do not and even osha themselves don't enforce a lot of things that they should um i can remember quite a few i think every single job i've ever had you know outside the military inside the military there's been some kind of osha violation that was a serious safety hazard right and you couldn't report it because if you reported it they'd know it was you and if they knew it was you they'd make your life miserable so um that's something that you're gonna have to kind of figure out how to get around yourself uh we haven't really found a good way to do that we can certainly google ourselves and you know tell you guys to google like how do i confidentially report osha violations and things like that but really i think the the best method is to just be aware and to take measures uh if you're if you're working in a company or in an employing agency and you know that there's no way on earth you're going to be able to egress out of your building if something goes down i mean like for instance you think there's no way you're going to be able to talk your boss into being able to let you evacuate because oh that fire alarm's going off oh it's just a drill you know i can't tell you how many times i've heard that myself so um yeah it's it's a it's a big concern i can't tell you how many times i've had to stay inside a skiff while the building i was in was actually on fire only to have a fire axe come through my skiff door because they were trying to get people out of there and hadn't realized that there were still three of us in the skiff because we were told to stay by the lieutenant commander navy lieutenant commander who had left himself so we realize these situations exist we're not going to ignore them and we're not going to sugarcoat them like a lot of these government reports will do but we do need to say that we don't have a good solution for you we just need you to to think about what you can do and if you're in that situation you're going to have to take a lot more preparations than what we're what we're going to recommend and what we're what we do so that's just something to consider another thing to consider is the longevity of of a disaster as we can see here in this image we have the the world trade center and um just how look how many floors were affected so that on the on the uh wtc2 the south tower the the impacted zone was from the 85th floor down to the 77th floor that's a lot that's a huge distance and likewise on the wtc one uh on the on the north tower it was from the 99th floor down to the 93rd floor so that is a very long distance right even the systems that we have would not have saved us have we been above those above the impact zone but really what we wanted to call your attention to is at the bottom of the screen here um it the wtc 2 collapsed after 56 minutes and wtc one collapsed after 102 minutes so these are not immediate things uh a lot of the a lot of the casualties that um were injuries or the or the survivors or the people that basically were in the towers but made it out in some way um a lot of them were able to make it out because there was plenty of time we're talking at you know we're talking you know almost an hour for the shortest time you know in over an hour and a half for the other tower they had plenty of time to egress and get out of there so we just want to stress that you know what you know the the tower collapsed at minute 102 right so at minute 101 people were still in that tower debating well should i go down you know they're still stuck on like the third or fifth floor you know third or fourth or floor or they're still stuck up god forbid above it you know so up until the minute it collapsed no one thought that those towers would collapse so that's just something to remember as well is that yes you may have time but you don't know how much time you might have and we have this concept of complacency that happens over time for instance you know the longer a disaster goes on without a change in in severity um the more likely people are to become complacent so that that did happen a lot at the world trade center disaster because you know well it's been up in the you know it's been uh half an hour since the plane impacted it and the building's still going strong there's no reason to think it'll fall right that kind of mentality cost a lot of lives that day so that's something to keep in mind as well and you know once again this is kind of a schematic of of what the wtc one the actual visual evidence of fires these are the windows that you could see fire in from the ground and from the air and as you can see this would have been very very very hard to survive had you been working or been located above the impact zone we can theorize about wtc all day long but the fact of the matter is is that even the systems that we have created for ourselves are not foolproof right it would be very very hard to do so and then likewise with wtc2 this one is a little bit different because this one of course it's always debatable but you can see the difference there's much much less fire in wtc2 and there was there was no visible fire on the west face so um that just shows you a a a difference between the two um and basically how even the same disaster can be very very different buildings which are have essentially the identical structure and they were hit with essentially the the the same attack can be very very different uh depending on just a few different factors so um and then moving on to you know this is the uh nist report nist report that was put out there have been hundreds of reports put out about 9 11 but one of the big ones was one of the big takeaways that we got from this report at the time was the milling about right one of the things that hampered evacuation was um as it says here i'll just read it out for the podcast listeners that you know normal response to uncertain but urgent circumstances involving information seeking information exchange and observation basically that boils that uh boiled down that means that people knew something had happened but they didn't know how severe it was and they couldn't see anything right they knew there was a fire they knew that the people in the second tower knew that a plane had hit the first tower because that that was um very obvious from the very start but people in the towers it took them a little bit to find the information about what had exactly happened had a bomb going off as it happened before and they had trained for and things like that and then another concern is here on the slide this is preparatory behaviors gathering materials phone calls making phone calls computer backups and shutdowns things like that basically people tidying up their desk and and closing things down for work just like they're going home for the day and that is a common theme among pretty much every disaster that hits a workplace people people report revert to habit people also don't have the the idea of i need to get out of dodge now and it's difficult to convey a sense of urgency plus we have to remember that uh that you know as it says here on the slide that no first responder interviewed by nist uh thought that the world trade center towers would collapse not a single first responder out of thousands of first responders that were there none of them thought the towers would collapse so that goes it goes to show you that your disaster might be a new one in the book right our disaster prevention guides and textbooks and all of our doctrine for emergency response whether it be something like the world trade center or something like a terrorist attack guess what all of that doctrine is based off of the last disaster it's based off of sometimes 10 20 30 year old logic and a lot of times that's not good enough in the case of the world trade center it was definitely not good enough um i think that you know this is not to of course this is not to demonize anyone or or or put down anyone who was there i you know we can talk all day long about how how awesome the response was and how you know i think that 9 11 was the most patriotic day that we can remember in u.s history but we do have to recognize that despite the fact that all of the first responders did the best they could and even did better than they should have considered the circumstances we've got to remember that it's not good enough we should always strive to be better and one of the big other takeaways here on the slide is it says in the upper right hand corner there was a quote from one of the survivors of tower 2 and the quote reads i was there during the 1993 bombing i did evacuate with a group of people who had no clue as to where we were going what i learned from that experience was to not trust the port authorities announcements had i not experienced that i might have listened to the port authority announcement and stayed put right so throughout the disaster the port authority was you know putting out announcements that says hey stay here um they they frequently you know i think one of the first ones was for everyone to go to the 60th floor go back up inside the building to the 60th floor where there is a an emergency staging area and you know that that cost a lot of lives that day so one one must remember that yes this research that's done by experts is probably the best research we have because you know research is better than no research at all but you also have to remember that common sense dictates a lot of things and we can't arm share a quarterback the 911 incident but we can say that we can arm share a quarterback our own disasters during the time that they're going on we can certainly say hey they're telling me this i need to do this that's perfectly fine that's what we're encouraging to do but once again it requires a lot of a lot of extra factors that we'll go over in a second so like i said this topic has has not really been touched on by a lot of people i think one of the the the good resources on youtube that's the more famous resource is the urban prepper i'm sure a lot of our uh listeners and and followers and people that are you know sort of in our network are aware of the urban prepper um the urban pepper you know is a guy who lives in pacific northwest um puts out a lot of videos on youtube and is you know an extreme um extremely organized he's well known for one his urban content right his urban you know bug out bags and uh disaster preparedness he's known for his little kids he's got i think he's got a kit for pretty much everything but he's also known for extreme organization so if you want to learn more we highly recommend you checking out the urban prepper by no means not a perfect resource but you know what it's got a lot of good information out there so if you're into that sort of thing that's a good resource to follow up on because we're certainly not experts in the field but you know he's got a lot of good points about things and i don't think any prepper is really an expert in the field i think that we're all doing the best we can because you know prepping and emergency preparedness and just having a generally good situational awareness and and thought process and plan that's not exactly that's not an exact science by any means right um so we're just trying to do the best we can and i think um you know this is one of the very few resources is actually talked about it um but unfortunately when we start going down the prepping road this is where we have to bring up prepping and immediately bash it is that prepping usually has a few stigmas associated with it which we'll talk about in a minute but one of the big things people get hung up on is the gear the gear the gear the gear we've done it ourselves i think i spent probably the better part of my boy scout days amassing a collection of military surplus gear and all kinds of things that are you know cool little gadgets and knives oh my gosh i probably got you know 100 knives and a drawer somewhere in my house but yeah we tend to get hung up on the gear a lot of times and that's not necessarily what we're going for right sure there is an interesting matrix um i couldn't find it for this video but um there is a matrix i think it was sort of talked about first by dave canterbury and the the logic is is that the more knowledge you have the less gear you need with you likewise the less knowledge you have the more gear you need to make up for that lack of knowledge that's why um bushcrafting is such a big hobby amongst people because bushcrafting the idea right is of course you know self-reliance and things like that you know bushcraft type setups and you know you just google the term bushcraft you know camping or bushcraft hiking or just bushcraft in youtube and you'll find a bunch of people you'll know exactly what style it is you know and it's not about um taking you know highly complex gear into the woods it's about doing more with less now likewise consequently we do have to have gear right there's no amount of knowledge that can save you from jumping out of a building there is no amount of knowledge that can protect you from breathing and fire right so we do have to have some gear but we also have to remember that it's not just about the gear and we ourselves have a hard time sometimes uh remembering that because we're definitely um definitely gear heads here we definitely like our gear and like our cool gadgets and you know as soon as our paycheck lands guess what it's probably getting spin on some camping gear or something or a gun part or something but but yeah it's just to remember that we don't want to fall into the trap of building kits right we don't want to fall into the trap of building bags right we want to get into the mindset of knowledge above everything else so that's where we're going to start if you want to start with the whole line system kind of going back to the urban prepper i'm not sure if he's the one who invented it but he definitely talks about a lot of his earlier videos and it's become basically a lot of doctrine nowadays of different lines right you know line one being the things you have the gear and the things you have in your pockets and on your person line two is you know like on your your your play carrier your chest rig or whatnot and line three is like your backpack right and you go on from there but we're going to start here we're going to use that as a rough guide right but we're going to start with line zero and that's the stuff that's inside your head right um and one of the big things if we're if we're going along with you know the fire theme here we're very heavy on fire this uh this particular episode because it's such a big concern for us just knowing where your fire exits are you know how many people just think to yourself right now you work in an office if you work in an office your office is required to have a fire evacuation plan okay well are do you know where that is do you know where that placard is on the wall because it's required to be posted do you have a picture of that evacuation plan on your phone that you can show to a firefighter and tell them hey my co-worker the last time i saw them was here do you have that and if not you probably should take steps to correct that likewise when you stay in a hotel how many of you take a picture of the fire evacuation map when you get into your hotel because a lot of times you know hotels at least in the united states are required to have the evacuation map like on the back of the door or something like that but i've stayed in many many hotels in southeast asia that don't have that at all so that's something to keep in mind as well you know either the placard is gone or it's just a bad hotel and you know trust me these things tend to compound right so if your hotel is not following the code by posting your evacuation plan from your room to the emergency exit chances are they probably skimped on some of the other fire protection methods as well so that is once again something to keep in mind so another thing is know where your first aid slash fire equipment is at we're not talking about strictly fire things nowadays because in a lot of workplaces and a lot of public places a big concern nowadays is active shooting or some kind of altercation or or something involving a gunshot wound so a lot of places a lot of workplaces are implementing these bleeding control kits as we see here in an image um and a lot of people they're new right so everyone you know pretty much everybody can roughly guess where their fire extinguisher is but then do they know where the bleeding control kit is for their workplace something once again to think about another thing to think about is um do i the status and the exact layout of your offices workplaces the place you spend your time that's not your home what is the sprinkler situation is there do you have a sprinkler do you have stand pipes outside that the fire department can hook up to do you have automatic sprinklers do you have no sprinklers at all but you do have reliable alarms something to you know be very considerate of because a lot of this stuff matters and then another thing to be considered about to think about is not necessarily fire but also flooding right so this here is a map of a flood area not a whole lot of people know and you can google this yourself but fema has a flooding map that you can actually type your address in and find your workplace and it will tell you whether or not your workplace is in a flood zone and news flash pretty much every building on earth is in a flood zone the question is what has to flood first so for instance our work center is not so much a huge risk for flooding but um considering it's it's like a hundred feet above sea level i think so basically if our office building gets flooded and in our house is even higher than that so um if our workplace or our or if our house gets flooded um basically the whole east coast is gonna be under water right it's gonna be an apocalyptic scenario right so this is not something you can exactly prepare for however the route that i have to drive from my house to my office is under sea level it is def it definitely goes right through a flood zone and there is no way i can get back to my house from my place of work if there if a flood happens because literally my house sits on uh my little geographic area the the general area which i live in is in a um area it's in a uh on a hill same thing with my office and though basically if there's a flood in my area guess what my office will be an island my house will be an island i can't get to one of the other if there's a flood so that you know that prior knowledge that prior research can save you a lot of time and uh it is something to consider so for instance if if you know if i'm at work can i get a notification that says hey heavy rain is expected within the next few hours and i just research it more and find out oh dear there's a flood warning for you know for a flood watch on until like 9 00 pm tonight guess what i'm going to pull chalks i'm going to leave work and go home early if i can and that will allow me to make sure that i'm at least at my place of place of residence before the flooding starts now if you don't have that flexibility if you have to stay at work basically until your building catches fire and then even then a few minutes afterwards to tidy the place up a bit if you live in and work in that type of environment we've been there with you trust me i i feel for you but you're gonna have to have a lot of you're gonna have to be have the capability of staying at your work or staying nearby the places you can walk to if you can't make it back to your house um and and this kind of you know to ending on the knowledge note we wanted to bring up kind of an interesting facet of of you know practicing with your gear right um it's become sort of white well not so widely known but widely known throughout the the um commercial survival uh industry that um we have the case study here brought up that the you know the famous uh captain sully landing on the hudson you know u.s airways flight 1549 um there were 150 people on board right they were landing in the water so basically that safety brief right that you get when you fly like people who have never flown before had never set foot on an airplane but have seen that in movies they've heard comedians talk about it they've seen it in popular culture like somebody it's so pervasive throughout society and so taken advantage of by comedians in the late 80s early 90s that everybody knows what generally what the safety brief is when you get on an airplane even people have never flown before but despite this there were 150 people on board that air aircraft only 33 of those people managed to take their life vests with them after the plane had come to a stop and they had begun evacuation procedures and of those 33 only four people were wearing their life jacket correctly so despite the fact that they had been lectured on this literally less than half an hour before right because the the incident took took place after takeoff it was immediately after the safety brief and they still failed to do it only four people out of 150 were able to take that knowledge understand it know where the life jacket is and be able to put that into use during an actual no kidding textbook survival scenario right so if you cannot do that if you cannot fall back on your knowledge right because we remember we fall back on the most basic level of knowledge right and for a lot of people grabbing their life jacket when they get off the airplane that's not uh base level base levels just get off the aircraft that's their highest level of training so we have to remember that training training training is the key here you have to remember that even though you know something even though you've read something when a disaster goes down you might not be able to put it into practice so that's sort of um a very very important topic that we cannot emphasize enough but moving on to line one this is the stuff you're wearing and carrying on your person now the first thing we have pop up here is a cobra belt with a cobra riggers belt with a d-ring attachment this is kind of essential right if if you work in a job where you're able to wear a web belt i.e in the military you better do so because this type of thing is pretty much mandatory if you don't have this you're not you're not going to be able to get very far now likewise if you have a job where you can't wear a belt like that you can also get which is what just popped up on the screen here one of these um simple bdu utility belts that cost about five bucks you can get them and they usually come in one size you just cut it to length and it rolls up extremely tightly and you could just put it in your bag and not worry about it and it will work just fine of course it doesn't have the d-ring loop and of course it takes a few uh extra seconds to don vice a belt you're already wearing but it will do in a pinch right so that's something that we're going to be relying on heavily here in a second up next is the pants you're wearing right or the clothes you're wearing so not a whole lot of people are um take advantage of the things they have and as you can see here in this pair of pants i'm sorry for our podcast listeners it's kind of hard to to illustrate but um uh these dotted lines going from the waist belt all the way down to almost the end of the ankle that's how we have rigged up a small short strand of paracord so you can take a paracord and you can loop it around your belt and then feed it down inside your pant leg so that it's almost reaching the floor and you can actually double it up and get upwards of 15 20 25 feet down your pant leg and it's practically unnoticeable for the military guys out there and for some of the civilians who w

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