Welcome to Craft Skills.
In our family group, most of us started by learning how to survive in the hills after getting lost on a walk or hike. Here in the U.K. that's about as near to an emergency as we're likely to encounter.

However, each year we seem to see more and more devastation caused by floods, unusual weather patterns and the inability of local authorities to cope with even the lightest snowfall. (Why do snow ploughs and gritters always seem to appear after the snow has melted?). Anyway, as these emergencies seem to become more common, many of us decided to explore the possibility of manufacturing our own bits and pieces that would help us (and our local community) to muddle through in relative comfort until things returned to some semblance of normality.

Some of the stuff in this section could be used for more long term survival where we had suffered a complete collapse of society (the woodworking, bone and antler and leather sections for example), although they are useful skills to develop if we wanted to sell our produce at craft fairs or the like. The other skills and equipment such as the various ovens and the lazy boiler were originally thought up to provide a central point for a family or small community. Anywhere that bread, hot food and hot water is available when individuals are either forced from their homes (for whatever reason) or cannot use the normal utilities such as electricity, water and gas, will provide the means for the survival of the community.