Urban Survival Planning – Be Prepared to Vacate Your Home

The alternate titles for this post are: When Home no longer is an Option; Being ready to execute your Survival Bug Out Plan; or, Withdrawal to the Safe Location.
In any event, we have written several times about not only having a safe location and a plan to get their,…remember Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency Routes?

Remember making your vehicle ready to get you there with extra stored food, extra spare tire, tools and even material to camouflage your vehicle if you have to hide it or remain over night or day at a location in between? Remember planning for foot movement overland in case your vehicle craps out or the roads or even the situation dictates moving on foot?

We have also said that most urban Survivors will make probably the decision to leave their Urban or Suburban homes later rather than sooner, in any case the Urban Survivor needs to be prepared to go at a moment’s notice. The last thing you need to be doing is throwing loose Survival Gear and Equipment and other odds and ends, however so necessary, into your vehicle.

The key is organization. And the key to organization is labeled containers. Cardboard boxes, plastic bags and fragile, one use containers should be avoided. Instead look to store your Survival Gear and Equipment, and other commodities such as food, seeds, tools, clothes, ammunition, and hardware to name some categories, in containers like buckets with lids, ammunition cans and gears bags such as rucksacks or daypacks.

This is separate from your Survival Bug Out Bag. Remember, your Survival Bug Out Bag is a last ditch small to medium sized rucksack that contains only the immediate essential Survival Equipment and Gear that you absolutely require.

Buckets can of course be purchased. However you may have some rural friends with livestock and they probably routinely throw supplement buckets with lids away. Lowe’s and Home Depot throw used paint buckets away. Check with the store or look in the dumpsters (probably better to ask first). We use a lot of buckets and hardly ever throw them away, unless they are flimsy. The picture (left) depicts many styles and type of plastic buckets.

Military ammunition cans are great storage containers. In good condition they have a rubber seal, however they are heavier than plastic buckets. Surplus stores and gun shows are the primary place to procure military ammunition cans. On-line or hard copy Survival Equipment stores also sell these. The large ammunition can in the picture (Left) is a 40mm ammunition can, while the smaller one is a small arms ammunition can.

Both types of containers have dual or multiple uses. They can of course be re-used for many different Survival Equipment and Gear; can be used to collect water or other foraged material in; can be used for expedient seats or tables; and importantly will last along time.

We use both kinds with labeling to rapidly identify what the contents are. The ammunition cans are particularly good for storage fragile or semi-fragile items like battery powered lanterns, other electronics, medical supplies, and liquids such as cleaning solvents, bleaches, etc.

Having organized Survival Gear, Equipment and Material in durable and labeled containers will not only store your items in a protective manner but will greatly assist in the decision making and packing of Survival Equipment and Gear when you have to rapidly vacate your Urban Home for a withdrawal to your planned Safe Location.