Questions on SHTF Bug Out

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post Urban Survival Planning – Reconnaissance and Security: "I live in Arizona and will be here another three years. If/when SHTF, I plan to be prepared. Got a decent amount of stuff and will be fairly good soon. However, my buddy has family on the east coast which would be a good getaway, but that distance seems rather daunting in most situations. I guess you never know what the situation at hand will be, but I'm trying to figure out do I invest in the more costly items for survival such as a $1,000 generator, etc., or sort of do what I gotta do for 3-6 month span and then take it from there? Living in the city is the worst part. I think that is what my biggest concern is. Aside from gun and ammo, there's not a whole lot else one can do for safety. Any other ideas for safety? Thought about a camera for outside monitoring."  

UrbanMan's reply:  Good questions. A long journey from Arizona to the East Coast is possible, but  improbable depending upon the collapse situation. Best case is that you see the collapse coming and complete your journey afbefore the worst of it hits. Given that this would be a 4 day trip, minimum at best, the situation - especially the security situation - could deteriorate during the middle of your trip forcing you to stop at a time and place detrimental to your safety. This would, of course, have to be considered before leaving. Everything from mass migration of refugees, to government martial law, and expected travel restrictions could strand you. In a total collapse I would envision bands of armed gangs, or at least desperate individuals, conducting ambushes on likely transit routes.  I would expect smaller communities would probably man road blocks for their own security forcing traffic to take different routes.

Fuel would be problematic. Two years ago, while a friend of mine was overseas, I was “on-call” to travel 860 miles (one way) to pickup his family and transport them to my Bug In location....hopefully before the collapse hit hard.  I figured I would have to have a full tank of fuel plus eighteen 5 gallon fuel cans to make the trip. If I could get fuel on the way, great,....if not, then I could make it there and back, barring accidents, road blocks, gangs, etc. My point being if you were planning on a long distance trip, I would want to begin that trip with enough on board fuel to make it to where I was heading without relying on luck or someone else’s kindness to sell or barter the fuel to me.

As far as the generator goes, those are great assets when or if you have the fuel to run it.  I have a hoard of empty fuel cans which I will fill as indicators start indicating the need.  I always maintain a small amount of fuel which I routinely change out.   But stored fuel will eventually run out.  I personally have solar panels. I use both small, portable solar panels to re-charge 12v vehicle batteries and chargers for AAA and AA re-chargeable batteries for my lanterns, flashlights, weapons lights, and radios. I have a larger solar power generator that can be easily loaded into a vehicle and taken with us when/if we bug out. I am just not going to depend upon being able to find fuel, either at the beginning of the collapse or several months into it. Plus fuel breaks down, so these movies and books where the hero finds a vehicle that was abandoned years before and he siphons the fuel and uses it, it is a little farfetched. Check out the Power Source 1800 Solar Generator.

As far as security, nothing works like physical barriers and active armed (and trained) observers.  Technology neeeds to be exploited to make life easier for us and to cover any operational requirements we may have. A game camera or home security camera that detects or senses movement then sends that photo to an e-mail or as picture mail to your cell phone is a fairly cheap and easy solution. Solar powered motion detection flood lights work good as also. Be sure to mount these so you can easily dismount and take with you when/if you have to bug out.

Good luck,..plan and prepare well. 

Survival Kits and Contingency Planning

Did you read about the 64 year old man who was hiking in the Utah desert, broke his leg and survived four days until Search and Rescue found him? This was the same area where another hiker wedged his hand in a crevice and had to cut off his hand to escape? This was made famous in the movie "127 hours".

Amos Wayne Richards of North Carolina, was hiking in the same area where Aron Ralston of "127 hours" fame had his self amputee event, when he fell and dislocated his shoulder and broke his leg. All he had on him was two water bottles, two protien bars, a cell phone (out of service area), a camera and a GPS. Mr Richards crawled about 5 miles until (four days later) he signaled a search helicopter
using the flash on his camera.

Mr Richards was lucky. Temperatures in the region were in the 80s F in the day to upper teens at night - more than a sufficient temperature difference and drop to make hypothermia a real threat.

In any event the two points I'd make about this latest hiker getting hurt are the absence of an on the body survival kit and the absence of a contingency plan.

Survival Kit

Just how much room or weight does it take for a person to carry an adequate amount of survival gear or equipment on any foray into othe wilderness? A hydration pack, with fire making items - yeah magnesium strikers are good but it doesn't take up much room or weight to add a cheap butane lighter (or two) and some fire starting material...even a mini-can of sterno. A poly pro or thermal top, a watch cap, gloves, ground cloth and/or thermal blanket are all light weight enough to carry.

Chemical lights, flashlight and even a mini-strobe would be necessary additions.

A small water filter straw and/or water purification tabs plus some more food items such as nuts and jerky would have been really useful as well.

Contingency Plan

We all know contingency plan are useful when things don't do as planned. We do this instinctive in some cases, such as when we drop our kids off at the mall and tell them "I'll meet you here at 5:00pm. Call me if you're are running late. I'll call you if I am running late. If I'm not here by 5:30pm, then head over to the Denny's restaurant and I'll pick you up over there."

There are some essential elements for a contingency plan. These essential elements are:

~ Intended Route - a map with crayons marks on it would do! Otherwise a written description and a sketch would certainly help understand the intended route.
~ Intended Timeline - where you plan on being when.
~ Emergency Actions - what you plan on doing if something goes wrong. Can included safe areas or holeups and emergency rally points or pickup points
~ Communications plan and contact schedule. This would also include any code words - avoid using real names over an unsecure line, as well as any visual signaling measures.
~ What to do if you don't show up.

If Mr Richards would have simply left a contingency plan with a friend and told that friend that if he didn't call by a certain time to call the Canyonlands National Park and inform them of Mr Richards' plan.

If we're involved in a total SHTF scenario where we are running patrols out of a safe site, then developing and issuing contingency plans for patrols of other movements outside of observation and/or supportable distance from the base camp needs to become second nature.

Remarks on FEMA Camps

Anonymous left a new comment on the older post entitled "USA FEMA Concentration Camp Controversy - Part I": "Ok, If the government were to imprison all the citizens, the country would crumble because the small businesses and consumer spending is what makes the country run, if you take that away, not only would the country cease to run, all materials the government would need to continue would not be produced, and all of the economics of the country would halt because the government would keep the spending, but the citizens of this country would be spending to somewhat equal it out so we would spiral into a black hole of debt, making us easy prey for others to take us over..."

UrbanMan Replies: I think the point is that the government would use the FEMA camps to imprison Americans,...maybe selected Americans,.....AFTER a collapse, after the businesses crumble, where it would be rationalized that Americans (maybe just some) need to be imprisoned to maintain order,...or perhaps in order to control disease and feed starving masses.

I am not a rabid anti-government conspiracy theorist, but I recognize the this may be become a possibility if the economy collapses, welfare checks stop coming and food is scare. The resultant chaos, especially in urban population centers may make it necessary for a "law and order - population control type approach" to handling masses or,...well, a large pissed off entitlement population.

I know the government well enough to understand that this is most probably being planned for at some level,....an outline of a plan,...what resources (read troops) would be necessary, and what the political fall out would be. I have been involved at various levels on operational plans,..no, not for population control but for lower level contingencies. This is simple contingency planning that all SHTF preppers should be doing anyway.