So “the end of the world as we know it” (TEOTWAWKI) has arrived in whatever form it takes. Do you have what it takes to rebuild from scratch? An article on The Organic Prepper presents a guide to reconstructing what has been lost.

As part of your preparations, you should have preserved as many books and physical printouts of modern knowledge as you can. Your library should cover basic homeschooling, engineering, machinery, mathematics, medicine, and science.

Your database also needs resources about the information and inventions used to start the Industrial Revolution. You will need blueprints, construction materials, and working examples of these primitive machines so you can reverse-engineer and build them.

Get this information, tools, and equipment wherever you can: Libraries, museums, personal collections. Store them somewhere safe from electromagnetic pulses, fire, flood, looters, and pests.

Also get as many of the seeds of the important food crops. Store them in seed vaults for the purpose of restarting agriculture as soon as possible. Also store the knowledge of growing and taking care of these plants.

Gather like-minded people who want to survive the collapse and rebuild civilization

Find people who have invaluable knowledge such as building, using, and maintaining these machines or teaching people. Recruit them to your cause of preserving civilization and technology. Persuade them that it is in their best interest to survive the inevitable collapse.

Once you have gathered enough people and sponsors, you could create a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving knowledge and technology. This will make the acquisition and storage of information much faster and far more efficient, as well as make it much easier to rebuild after the disaster.

All members should be preppers as well. You will need as many of these important people to survive TEOTWAWKI in order to rebuild the world.

Set up safe areas where these people can survive most disasters. As much as possible, put them near places with sustainable sources of energy. A steady source of power will be of great convenience.

Keep these locations secret. They are the cornerstone of civilization, so they will be targeted by those who want to profit off your efforts. (Related: For when TEOTWAWKI happens: How to protect yourself from biohazards.)

Rebuilding civilization in a post-collapse world

Once TEOTWAWKI happens, the first order of business is to survive the first year after the collapse of society. Whether you chose to bug out of the city or bug into your home, work on keeping yourself and any companions alive through the winter.

Once you are secure in terms of vital supplies, you can start making plans for restarting civilization. If you have managed to set up the non-profit organization above, contact them and start implementing the reconstruction plans you came up with before the collapse.

If you are on your own or with only a small number of allies, set up a machine shop that can build tools with which you can construct machinery.

You should have at least one working metal lathe to begin with. A lathe can build any tool from scratch, up to a new lathe. Acquire or scavenge the raw materials you need for making the new machines and tools.

Once the machine shop is up and running, build the machines required by a technical civilization. Start with the items that ease the production of other machines. An electrical generator or an oil refinery or a water mill can replace muscle power, if that is what has been powering your production process so far.

If you want to stay well-advised about potential TEOTWAWKI events, visit SHTF.news.

Sources include:

TheOrganicPrepper.com

SeedVault.no