Common Mistakes While Bugging Out

An article posted by Selco on the SHTF School on April 11, 2015. Selco always writes good stuff on website.
[Source: Link to article: http://shtfschool.com/basic-survival/common-mistakes-while-bugging-out/trade post collapse]

Bugging out is something that I once failed to do, because I did not even realize that it needed to be done, actually I saw what was happening but I did not „process“ the information in correct way, so I stay and had to go trough whole period of watching, doing, and getting hit by violence, together with being cold, hungry, sick and everything else.

Because bugging out is so important and survival done right is often not getting into survival situations in the first place I stress importance of bugging out (if you are not already live in great bug out location anyway).

Consider the following couple of mistakes that I witnessed (more than one time):

Right moment Guy figured out that SHTF, something happening in the city, hears screams outside, shots, confusing news on TV, he rounds up his family, puts all bags in his car, they are armed and they go out in order to reach their bug out location in hills some 50 miles away. After one mile of traveling angry mob who just plundering local mall stops the car, pull them out, and beat them, and then kill the guy, he managed to kill few of them before that, but they were hundreds. He is dead. End of story.

If you woke up in the middle of the night, because something strange happens in your town, some event, maybe terrorist attack, or martial law put into effect or whatever, sit down and think for a moment. Your mission is to leave the area and reach your bug out location, do not confuse that mission with any urge to panically run. If you go into the panic you will make mistakes, and it is definetly not time for mistakes. You would be surprised to know how many people are prone to panic, and how many of them end up dead because of that.

Try to gather some information, and act accordingly to that information, who, what, when, how long, where.

Try to figure out what is happening before you start to bug out to your bug out location. What are problematic areas? Who is in control? You will never have perfect information but it is better than having no information at all.

Speak to neighbors, listen to the radio and TV and look on Twitter and other social media. Yes that often means you will need to postpone your trip, maybe for hours, or sometimes for even days. You need to choose the best moment to leave the area (if you already missed to leave the area before SHTF).

"Right way“ SHTF and family get in their pick up, with trailer full of good equipment for SHTF time. They managed to go some 20 miles down the road, where few cars simply „get them“, block them and take everything from them. They manage to save their lives or maybe not. Who knows.

Real problem here is not having right and good equipment, and lots of it. Real problem is that we are being constantly bombarded with information that we (preppers and survivalists) need to have right equipment (a lot) in order to survive. Because without it we are gonna end up dead. We are being instructed that without "things“ we are lost, we are not even right survivalists.

So when SHTF we are becoming something like prisoners of our things. Guess what? I am preparing myself to bug out in my sneakers, with pistol and plastic bag. If I have to I will collect everything else what I need on my way to my bug out location. Do not get me wrong, of course I have my bug out bag, my plans, and my useful stuff for trip to my bug out location, but the point is that I am really expecting that I will find myself in situation where I need to reach bug out location without all those things. Do not accept philosophy that things will save your life. Things will help you to stay alive, but your (correct) mindset will mainly save your life.

Anyway, plan to have what you need at your bug out location (already prepared), do not rely too much on things while you are bugging out, you need to be able to get things done with minimal equipment that’s why skills are more important than equipment and in best case you have both. Right mindset One word-ADAPT.

If you are bug out plan plays out excatly like it should you are a very lucky man. Consider the fact, that most of you are making plans to cover hypothetical SHTF scenarios, that you seen on TV shows, read about it somewhere, member of family went through somewhere, or simply you had couple of bad experiences. It is normal. We need to guess and it is best we can do.

You are building your plans based on that, nothing wrong with that. Except that everything may go wrong in one moment. You have plan to go through the city from point A to point B then to point C etc, and then to reach safe point somewhere. All good, but SHTF and your youngest son is still in school, your car is broken, and at point B in your plan something weird is happening, some kind of riot, let say with all chaos and confusion some trucks with money are rolled over right at your point B and now you need to find out a new way quickly, and your whole plan is gone, you do not know what to do. Welcome to reality! Reality usually likes to blow all your good plans to pieces. But point of planning is to COVER as many problems as you can, so make sure you play through as many scenarios as possible.

For example if you have just one way out of the city it is bad plan, it needs backup and backup of the backup.


UrbanMan's comment: Remember PACE Planning?

Prepare for the fact that your plan will be wrong right at the beginning, and that you need to make new plan very soon, (and couple of more new plans until you reach your bug out location.) Do not end up dead because you wanted to stick to your plan because it looks good, while circumstances changed hourly around you. Survival is about quickly adapting to new situations. That is why it always helps to take a map and whatever else you need to have good sources of information to make new plans on the go. These were just few of the most important things to consider when bugging out. How do you plan to bug out.

Urban Man

Think Like a Green Beret: The PACE Plan

Sometimes you get lucky and your plan works just as you thought it would. Enjoy those days, because there will not be many of them. No matter how smart you are or how hard you work, on the battlefield, the enemy always gets a vote. The famous philosopher Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.” The Green Berets know something about taking a punch, and they have a plan for that, too.

Exercise Robin Sage is a series of very bad days. The culmination of the Special Forces Qualification Course, Robin Sage starts with intense planning, and then your ODA goes into Pineland, where a team of professional role players and evaluators crushes those sweet plans contingency by contingency until you lose your plan B, followed by that alternative you never wanted to use until you are in emergency mode. That is the point at which you realize, when you plan for the worst thing that can possibly happen, and that thing happens, the situation can only improve.

SEAL math famously teaches, “Two is one and one is none.” Green Berets aren’t happy with those odds when failure can risk a life or jeopardize the mission.

Lacking the SEAL’s poetic nature, the Green Beret forgoes rhyming and uses the acronym PACE.

PACE describes a methodology originally used to build a communication plan. For an ODA in a denied area, communication is the only way to get resupplied, and most importantly, extracted. The loss of all communications normally initiates the escape-and-evasion plan. The no-comms plan universally sucks, and almost always means abandonment of the mission and unsupported escape and evasion. Nobody wants that. The PACE acronym stands for primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency.

Primary: The routine and most effective method of communication.

Alternate: Another common method of passing a message with minimal to no other impact. May be used along with the primary under normal circumstances to assure readiness.

Contingency: This method will normally not be as convenient or efficient as the first two methods, but is capable of passing traffic when necessary.

Emergency: This is a method of last resort that probably sucks in some very significant way and may incur significant delays.

The PACE method establishes four methods of communication between your team and higher. The genius of PACE is what engineers call ‘graceful degradation.’

When your primary radio fails, it is way too soon to worry; you still have A, C, and E. You transition through the plan and hopefully get extracted before you are forced to rely on E.

An example of a PACE plan would be:

Primary: Satellite radio
Alternate: High-frequency radio
Contingency: Satellite phone
Emergency: Survival radio on guard frequency to aircraft overhead

To be valid, each method must have independent equipment and power sources. This costs a lot of weight and is typically spread across the team so the loss of one man or rucksack doesn't compromise more than one method.

Well, if PACE is good for communications, it is good for everything else, formal and informal. If I have four ways to do something, I can be pretty cavalier about a single failure. But there are many instances where we just don’t have that many options. On a parachute infiltration, we have two parachutes and the option to stay on the plane. The failure of all three of those alternatives makes the emergency option for reaching the ground look pretty grim.

For water, chow, weapons, and everything else essential, PACE is a natural way of thinking:

Primary: M4 rifle
Alternate: Grenades
Contingency: Handgun
Emergency: I use my knife to get another gun or two from the enemy

When the Green Beret has a full set of PACE alternatives in any area, he is confident. As problems arise, he works through the degraded options, always looking at ways to regain the lost alternatives and move back up the chain. Things will go wrong, equipment will get lost or broken, teams might get separated during the mission or by enemy action. PACE lets you plan for the very worst while maintaining a positive mindset.

Green Beret survival training prepares them to improvise weapons and shelter while foraging food and water. This gives them a resilience that allows them to maintain morale in conditions that would break others. They live PACE everyday. The idea that you can handle the worst possible situation makes anything better seem like luxury.

You can use PACE to plan how to get to work or what to do if your girlfriend dumps you. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Have a series of plans for that.

Having thought out the options and requirements beforehand makes the execution of a plan much less stressful.

Think like a Green Beret. Use PACE. If you don’t have that many options, be cautious and try to develop more. If you get pushed down to emergency options, push back and recover. Make a plan and work it. As Elvis, The King himself, once said, “When things go wrong, don’t go with them.”

[Source: Article from: Mark Miller, posted on the Load Out Room,
http://loadoutroom.com/14734/think-like-a-green-beret-the-pace-plan/]

Urban Man

Urban Survival Skills – Course of Action One: Retreat

If you live in an urban or suburban area and are largely dependant of grocery stores and the utilities grid for water and electricity then often the best course of action (COA) is to pack up and move to somewhere where you can survive better, be safe and provide for your family. The trick is when to recognize “when the getting is good”. For sure, there will be many people waiting it out; expecting the big government to rescue them and provide for them or just hoping that everything will return to normal. DO NOT be one of these people; you and/or your family’s survival may depend on this one decision.

Possibly the first element of your overall survival plan, where you can go and how you will get there, will be vital. Let’s assume that you kept your vehicle in good mechanical shape, ensured that you never got below ¾ of a tank of fuel before filling up, and have coordinated with whoever is at your destination so they are prepared to receive you and your family into their survival/family group.

The execution of moving to a different location includes what type of means (vehicle, bicycle, motorcycle, horseback or on foot, etc) and what route. You should have several routes planned. These would be referred to as your primary, alternate and even contingency and emergency routes. The first letter of each spells PACE which is an acronym we will be using from now on. Best case is if these routes were driven in the daytime and nighttime for familiarization and to reduce chances of getting lost.

Along all routes, you need to identify survival hides, or Hole Up areas, that if you have a mechanical problem with your mode of transportation, or end up on foot, these survival hides or hole ups would be used as a place to hide, re-group and re-plan.

Survival Hide Sites are places that offer cover and concealment should be defensible allow you to see anyone approaching and are used to remain over one period of daylight or one period of darkness before you move on. Survival Hole Up Sites have the same requirements as Hide Sites but are used for multiple periods of daylight or darkness in order to rest, recuperate, treat injuries or wounds, and/or forage for foods.

Summary:

• If your plan is to withdrawal or re-locate to a safer zone, then plan that movement.
• Consider PACE when developing your routes.
• Consider contingencies that may happen along your transit, such as vehicle breakdown, impassable roads, transition to foot movement.
• Ensure you consider all the survival gear and equipment, not to mention the survival skills that you will need not only to execute your withdrawal plan but to address contingencies enroute.