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  Want your business to be the top-listed Hardware Service in Houston?

Cerakoters.com by STRAC

The concept for STRAC started in 2008 when a Hurricane ripped through Texas. Hurricane “Ike” was said to be one of the most destructive Hurricanes ever to hit Texas and one of the deadliest. 3 days prior to the storm, the grocery store shelves were completely wiped out, the hardware stores had lines around the block, there were 6 hour waits to get a gallon of gas, traffic sat still for as long as 18 hours and we had zero food, water or protection stored. Too be completely honest, we were screwed. I failed my family, I failed my children and I failed myself as a husband and father. I can’t even begin to explain the feeling of helplessness and despair. After the hurricane’s 19.3 billion dollars in damage and 84 deaths, I became a prepper.

(I started prepping) As a prepper and firearm enthusiast I started self-educating and investing in preparations for myself and my family. I started with the typical food, water and shelter preparations, and also started increasing my passion for fi****ms, ammunitions and precision shooting. During this time I started investing tens of thousands of dollars to make sure my family had adequate preparations in the case of an emergency or national disaster. I wanted to make sure that my family could be self-sufficient for at least 6 months in a worst case scenario.

(I learned the hard way) Where I went wrong was I bought individual bugout bags for the entire family. I had vested anywhere from $900 to $1600 for each. I stuffed those things with everything but the kitchen sink. I had fishing gear, chem suits, 8 types of fire starter, stoves, lanterns, sleeping bags, police scanners, shovels, can openers, soap, towels, silver coins, sewing kits and about 75+ other items stuffed into a big 72 hour bag. I gave each one of my family members their bags and told them to keep the bag on them at all times, meaning their car, their apartment, their bedroom, wherever they were. They knew if there was an emergency, that they would grab their bag and go. That was my 4th big and costly mistake.

(A reality check) Bottom line is everything I researched online or saw on TV back in those days, talked about your Bug out bag (BOB), Bug Out Lists, your bug out location, your bug out vehicle and making sure your bugout bag was equipped for at least 72 hours to make sure you got to your bug out location (BOL) before running on empty. Well the 1st problem was that I didn’t have a bug out location, there was nowhere for my family and I to bugout to. The 2nd problem was, even if we did have BOL, our packs weighed 100lbs each, which was way too heavy. If our BOL was more than a few miles away, we would have to dump half of our packs to make it there. The 3rd problem was 50% of the stuff in my bag was useless. Since I don’t have a BOL to go to, what good is a foldup shovel or a high altitude camping stove if I don’t camp? And when will I ever use fishing line wrapped around a small piece of wood, when I have a rod and reel in my garage? The 4th problem was when I finally found an opportunity to use some of the gear that I wasted money on, the equipment failed. I took my boys camping with our ATV’s one weekend and thought this would be a perfect time to put some of this gear to use. Luckily we weren’t in a survival situation, cause we wouldn’t have lasted 48 hours. The hand crank emergency radio didn’t work and cranking it only made me look more like an idiot. 2 of the 3 types of stoves we bought burnt to a crisp and fell apart. All but one of the flashlights had dead batteries, the LED headlamp didn’t allow me to see 4 feet in front of me, the fish hooks were rusted and a handful of other things that went wrong made for a great Seinfeld episode. To be completely transparent my ego was hurt. After spending all this time and money on these items and persuading my wife that this investment was for the safety and survival of our family, I felt like a complete idiot. Half the stuff we bought never would have been used in a real life situation and the other half of stuff just didn’t work. Not to mention there was never even a bugout location to go to. So all this time, effort, expense, learning curve, etc. is what led to the launch of STRAC.

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