A Disaster Laptop Computer – Part 1, by J.M. >

Unless you’re already living completely self-sufficiently and off-grid, when a TEOTWAWKI scenario comes along you’re going to have to quickly adapt your lifestyle and mindset in order to survive long-term. That means bringing all of your preparations to bear, including skills, expertise, information and supplies. While you may have prepared for immediate survival, implementing a major long-term shift in your lifestyle will require an organized approach to keep track of the information, schedules and other activities you’ll need to keep going.

In ‘normal’ times many of us use computers to perform these types of activities, and there’s no reason you can’t continue to leverage those experiences and capabilities in post-disaster scenarios. This article will focus on selecting and configuring a laptop for long-term use after a major disaster has occurred, based on what works best for me. Every person and group is different and there’s no absolute ‘one size fits all’ solution that will work for everyone, but the information should be useful for helping you set up your own system.

Hardware

For the laptop itself I decided to focus on a Microsoft Windows system, since it’s what I’m most familiar with and it has the largest selection of available options in terms of hardware, software and pricing. There were a couple of criteria I used:

• Screen size – While many younger people these days seem to be able to consume content and information perfectly fine on a small 6” phone screen, I wanted the largest screen I could afford. Viewing and correlating documents, maps, photographs, videos, etc. is a lot easier when you have a bunch of screen real estate to work with. Beyond a certain age, having the ability to increase font sizes and zoom in on images while still seeing the big picture isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity.
• USB-C Power Delivery (PD) power – Many older laptops require a 110V AC power brick with a round DC barrel power connector, typically providing around 12V-19V, which means you’d probably need access to a 110V AC outlet to charge and run them. However, the introduction of USB-C PD means you can now power things like laptops directly from generally available power bank batteries, which can provide voltages up to 20V DC (the latest version of the USB-C PD standard increases that to 48V). This makes it a lot easier to use solar power to charge batteries which can then run and charge your laptop, eliminating the inefficiencies and extra hardware associated with converting to and from 110V AC.
• Processor – While higher-end CPUs are great for processor-intensive activities like gaming and number crunching, the recent versions of the lower-end ones (like the Intel i3) are more than fast enough for viewing and managing information. I also wanted a processor that supported Windows 11, since free Windows 10 security updates will end in October 2025.
• Memory – 16GB is enough to handle any of the tasks I envision doing.
• Storage – The more the better. I wanted a big SSD (1TB is nice) for the main storage, with an optional removable storage option like a built-in microSD card reader.
• Ports – I wanted at least 1 extra USB-C port (besides the USB-C PD power port), an HDMI port to allow a connection to an external monitor and some extra USB 3.x ports for things like removable storage.
• Price – Something around $500.

The system I end up with is the Nimo N171 I3-1215U, which has a 17.3” screen, 16GB of memory, a 1TB SSD and USB-C PD charging, running Windows 11. The normal price is around $500, but it frequently goes on sale for a lot less that that, especially around times like Black Friday. Also, Nimo does a lot of their assembly work in the US, and is expanding their operations here to do even more. Note that there’s no reason you can’t use a laptop you already have – just make sure you can charge it in a disaster scenario. If you do want to purchase a new laptop for use after a disaster there are a number of other places that tend to have good prices, including Woot, Discount Electronics, Walmart and Newegg. You can also frequently find good deals on used and refurbished laptops on places like eBay.

As I mentioned earlier, screen real estate is king when it comes to viewing and working with a large amount of information, so in addition to the laptop I also got an external portable USB monitor to use as a second screen. These come in sizes from 10” to over 30” and can also be powered from a USB-C PD power supply, so you can run them off the same battery power bank as your laptop. Most of them connect to a USB-C port on your laptop, and some of them also support a HDMI connection. Prices range from around $20 to over $300, and I picked up a nice 18.5” one for around $100 during a Black Friday sale.

For powering/charging the laptop and external monitor when the power grid is down you’re going to want a laptop power bank with 2 USB-C PD ports that supply enough power. The Nimo laptop needs around 65W and the external USB monitor 35W, so I needed a power bank that provides at least 100W of power. I found a Baseus Blade Laptop 100W 20000mAh Power Bank on sale for $50, but there are a lot of other options available. For powering everything when normal 110V AC power is available you’ll also want a USB wall charger that provides 2 USB-C PD outputs (assuming you have an external USB monitor) and at least 100W. If you’re using an older laptop that has a round DC barrel connector you may still be able to leverage a USB-C PD laptop power bank by using a USB-C PD-to-barrel connector – they’re available for various voltages (12V, 19V, etc.), but you need to make sure you get the correct barrel connector size.

The final piece of hardware you should consider is a printer, since there will be times you’ll want to print out hard copies of things like patrol plans, inventories, pictures of people to be on the lookout for, etc. Companies like HP, Epson, and Canon make nice portable color inkjet printers – avoid the thermal printers if you can. I have an Epson Workforce WF-110 printer that my company bought for me for when I travel, and it has a built-in battery that can be charged from a USB-C port just like the laptop. If you are going to include a printer in your preps, make sure you stock up on ink cartridges and paper (plain and photo). Both the ink cartridges and paper should be sealed in mylar bags with moisture absorbents to increase their storage life. Printer paper will absorb moisture over time, which causes it to swell and jam printers.

Note that I configured my disaster system to operate without any Internet connection (except for performing regular updates), but if you’re interested in having the ability to connect various laptops, phones, tablets, etc. together locally to share information, please refer to my previous article on setting up a local disaster network.

Setup

When initially setting up a new Windows 11 laptop there are a few things you should do to make it more suited to running in a disaster environment. First off I highly recommend configuring it with a local account instead of a Microsoft account, which prevents Microsoft from collecting a lot of personal data on what you do and doesn’t ever require Internet access to log on.

Once your system is set up you should go through and uninstall any of the pre-installed applications that you won’t be using. This frees up storage space and reduces the load on your system by eliminating the background processing that some of these apps do. Here’s a list of the Microsoft apps that I uninstalled:

• 3D Viewer.
• Feedback Hub
• Groove Music
• Microsoft News
• Microsoft Solitaire Collection
• Microsoft Teams
• *Microsoft To-Do
• Mixed Reality Portal
• Movies and TV
• *OneNote for Windows 10
• *Sticky Notes
• Voice Recorder
• Windows Terminal
• Xbox Console Companion

The ones with asterisks in front of them may be useful, but I have other apps that I prefer to provide that functionality. Some laptop vendors also pre-install a bunch of apps for their own services or for services they have agreements with, so you should remove any of those that you won’t be using. Any apps that require Internet access like Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive should also be deleted, since the Internet probably won’t be around after a major long-term disaster.

Software

The whole purpose of a computer is to run software to support your activities and operations, and since the Internet most likely won’t be available for downloading new software after a disaster selecting and installing the right software beforehand is critical. Here’s a list of the activities I want to be able to support with my disaster laptop:

• Programming my radios
• Inventory management
• Intelligence/security information management
• General note taking
• Create and edit documents
• Create and edit diagrams
• Read documents/reference material
• Connect to my local disaster cloud server (Nextcloud running on a Raspberry Pi)
• Log into the various Raspberry Pis I use around my house
• View and annotate maps for intelligence analysis, patrol planning, resource location, etc.
• View and edit intelligence/security photos
• View and edit intelligence/security videos
• Maintain a calendar for scheduling activities
• Maintain a to-do list
• Backup/synchronize files between computers, USB drives, etc.
• Write simple Python utility programs
• Communicate with and control various hardware devices I own (e.g. 3D printer, paper printer, weather satellite receiver, etc.)
• Keep my sensitive data secure (encryption)

(To be continued tomorrow, in Part 2.)