Urban Survival - Reader Question on Viability of Defending Your Home

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received a comment from Anonymous that said... “Plan, Prepare, Procure, and survive...good idea, BUT what if word gets out YOUR place is the place to be "raid" if you will? Do you have a self destruct button around in case you are at your "last stand" there? No bug out place...you are dug in and in it for the long ride…Massive crowd surrounding your place moving in at a high rate 20 yards from your home – not land, but home (the area you surround yourself defensively).”

UrbanMan replies: Good points. Here is some food for thought:

In the preparation phase, where we are now, it is a two edged sword to try and get neighbors, family and friends to prepare. If there is a chance they may be relying on you, then you want them to prepare as best as they can and to come to you prepared to reduce the burden on you. This of course exposes you and your efforts to a lot of people, who can in turn expose that information to a host of other people,....and with any of them having bad intent on you and yours, especially when they are cold, hungry and scared....in other words desperate,..can and will place you and your family and group in danger.

Survival is a team sport. A Urban Survival Group would not only need enough people to reasonable provide for security but to also complete all those mundane tasks such as procurement, maintaining gardens, treating or filtering water, cooking, etc., and still get rest.

In my mind that is a bare minimum of four adult capable of all tasks. This group may be several different families living in the same building in an Urban environment or in nearby houses on a Suburban street, but obviously a larger group would be able to do more tasks, especially the essential task of security and force protection.

A larger group obviously creates a bigger burden on feeding and creates bigger odds for personality problems. If you are the Survival Group leader, you will need to be able to foresee problems like this and wargame solutions to solve this without tearing the group apart. Some people are not team players,....others can't see the forest for the trees...and little problems will become big problems if not addressed immediately.

I have written an article on hardening your home, click here to view. Even if you have a very hardened site, manned by veterans of Afghanistan and plenty of firearms and ammunition, you will still need to plan for a Bug Out so in case you are over run or staying at the present location becomes no longer viable.

Every firebase has at least primary escape routes to rally points at a location with at least a significant terrain feature between the the rally point and the firebase (or hardened home) you are escaping from.

The rally points,...they have been called "Go to Hell Rally Points", or "Initial Evasion Locations" can and should be supported with nearby caches of Survival Gear, Equipment and Supplies in order to get you to your next planned or tentative safe location.

So,.....you can plan in secret, covering your intent to survive in place or effect a Bug Out,.....but, it is hard to maintain that Operational Security (OPSEC) unless you are in a remote area or actually at your Safe Location. I have chosen the other path,...to witness to people the need to prepare and how to prepare for the coming collapse. Surely that information can make me a target,..and I've been a target before,...but, I'm pretty adept at making myself less of a easy target.

I'll do what I can to help strap hangers showing up,....I'll do what I can to help my neighbors,...I won't place my family or my Survival Group at undue risk. I may certainly have to turn away some people, but people will have a better chance being accepted in my Survival Group is they come prepared and with skills and abilities we can use. Welfare recipients need not apply.

Urban Survival Book Review - American Apocalypse

Fiction books on Surviving the Collapse, a la “Patriots”, “One Second After”, “Lights Out”, and a host of maybe lesser known novels all serve to present us with problems that we surmise would be common or probable in a Survival environment.

The series “American Apocalypse” is such a story. Set around the Nation’s Capital this story picks up well into a gradual economic collapse where there are designated security zones separating the “haves” from the “have nots”.

What makes the scenario of this novel realistic is the host of reports that have recently came out warning of a disappearance of the Middle Class, see this article here.

The first book, “The Beginning” involves a decreasingly un-safe Urban Survival situations with conditions deteriorating from increasingly harder to get commodities and lack of security outside of the secured zone of Washington D.C. Some elements of normalcy exist with a fluctutating levels of sporadic electrical power and access to the internet, but inter-mixed with gang activity and murders among the mostly empty urban multi-story buildings of highly vacant urban area, and draconian government response to food riots.

The second volume picks up with the core characters leaving town heading to a rural interim safe position. The skilled Survivalist will recognize many bad habits and errors as the core group move overland, like a long range patrol in denied enemy terrain, as they move towards a safe area.

After arrival in a small town, the core characters face problems dealing with organizing the community for basic law enforcement and security; dealing with some hostile actions of competing groups.

The big lesson learned from my reading and observations was the failure of the characters to start developing a food supply through farming to supplement the meager food they had or what came in on increasingly rare shipments. This lack of plot line reminded me of “One Second After” where it took the surviving townspeople some time before they planted crops and tried to develop or barter for a livestock herd.

All in all I recommend these novels because I think they realistically portray what is going to happen in either a sudden or gradual economic collapse with the Urban areas becoming increasingly violent and essential tip over when utilities (water and power) and food shortages become critical short or non-existent. The flood of refugees out of the urban areas are going to massive. Imagine 6 million folks (or more) exiting the major Washington D.C. area. If you are in an urban area, you need to have a plan and make a decision before your Bug Out options are closed off to you. Plan, Prepare, Procure and Survive. Be decisive, as an 80% solution executed in a timely manner is always better than a 99% solution executed too late.

Urban Survival Skills - Making Expedient Ice

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received this in an e-mail from an alike minded Survival Prepper,….."Urban Man thought you may want to let everyone know how to make expedient ice. In a collapse we probably won't have electrical power for refrigerators or freezers."

Absolutely true. In the aftermath of a collapse, or maybe just in a State like California or Illinois which are bankrupt and can't pay their bills let alone the utilities bill, frequent power blackouts leading to a total electrical grid infrastructure failure would be the projection.

Urban Survivors would have to do what their ancestors did,...can produce, jerk or dry meats and dehydrate vegetables. Building a cellar well into the ground with a well insulated container or room can produce storage temperatures well below the ambient air temperature on the surface.

A reader's contribution to the projected lack of a power and therefore lack of cold storage is the below instructions on how to make field expedient ice.

Making field expedient ice

Items/Material needed:

Ammonium Nitrate

A Bucket or Large Pot

A Smaller Metal Bowl

Water

Measuring Containers - At least two of these.

Mixing the coolant for making the ice:

1. Mix equal parts of ammonium nitrate and water in the bucket.

2. Fill the bucket 3/4 of the way full with the mixture.

3. Place a smaller metal bowl on top of the rim of the bucket or large pot.

4. Fill the smaller metal bowl half full of water.

5. It will take several hours for the water to freeze into ice.

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com has not tried this but is interested in any reader having experience using this method and any associated tips.

Survival Chronicles of Jim – Chapter 16

Well my vegetable garden is kicking butt. My pomegranate tree, really a bush, is producing some small fruit. My tangerine tree is not producing yet.

I have harvested about 18 large squash fruit and several smaller egg plant fruits. I can see that if I needed to I could grow more produce. If everyone in the neighborhood also grew vegetables and fruit, a local farmer’s market type concern could be established for barter. I guess that’s probably asking for too much. There will be some people who did not prepare or procure in any shape or fashion,….God forbid them to have weapons and demand to be taken care of or given food. So yeah, I can to the conclusion that Bug Out at some point as the only option. Urban Survival is possible, but most likely only for a time, unless you very well planned and have prepared well, and, had a substantial Survival Group for mutually support.

More and more I see that an economic collapse is not only possible but probable. The article about the shrinking Middle Class hit home. I do really well financially and should be in the “haves” group, but worry about the “have nots” and what they may be capable of when the food runs out and the utilities stop. Plus I am not immune from losing my job – I am not a government employee.

I am making plans on heading back to my Safe Location, which is family cabin well North of my city, and emplace another cache. I last emplaced a cache near the cabin in February. This new trip will allow me to check out the first cache and see how it is faring,..if any animals or people uncovered it, or if water running off the hill threatens it.

The February cache has the following items:

Aqua Mira Bottle Water filter unit,

Frontier Pro Water Filter Straw,

Extra water purification tabs,

Pack of three butane lighters,

Six of the Three Day Main Stay bars,

Two small green ponchos spray painted sand color and brown,

Small camp hatchet,

100 foot roll of green parachute line (small diameter rope),

One set of long underwear plus four pair of extra socks,

25 rounds of 12 gauge buckshot,

450 rounds of .22 LR ammunition,

Six small cans of roast beef,

Twelve packs of Ramen noodles

Two large packs of Beef jerky and some freeze dried fruits

I bought the “Vegi-Max” collection of Heirloom seeds that come in a sealed #10 can from EarthWaveLiving. I traded a old computer, that I repaired and upgraded, for a .22 LR revolver as well (can anyone say barter society?). I am going to cache these items plus these additional items:

200 more rounds of .22 LR ammunition,

Sharpening device for my knife and hachet,

Pack of 8 “AA” batteries,

Pack of 8 boxes of wooden matches,

Small gun cleaning kit

Pair of Green 5.11 pants,

Extra t-shirt and Sweatshirt

Two small emergency ponchos

Rather than put this cache in od metal ammunition cans, I'm going to put all the items in a two lengths of PVC pipe, pop in an oxygen absorber then seal up the PVC cache container, using PVC glue, and conceal near the cabin. I'm going to glue some webbing straps from old M16 slings so I can carry these into the cache area. I remember that I need to emplace the cache in a location that I can get to if the cabin is occupied by unfriendly people if/when I Bug Out there.

I don’t know about Neomi anymore. I think I’m going to have to cut her out of my Urban Survival Plans, unless she just plain shows up after the collapse, as she was telling me she has to include her Mother and Sister, who will be a burden and won’t prepare. Hell, I can't stand to be in the same room with her sister. I don’t know if I’m being too hard or lacking humanity here, but to include people I have to care for places me and my son at risk. I just don’t know.

Have not found anymore coins for Silver Melt value, so I went and bought five more Silver one ounce rounds. I’m starting to get a collection of silver here and it makes me feel good to have the Silver rounds and Silver Melt coins on hand.

Oh, and I bought some more re-chargeable AA batteries and another flashlight that runs on AA batteries, as well as another box of 7.62x54mm ammunition for my Mosin-Nagant rifle. Note: I was eating lunch with a couple of shooters that work with UrbanMan and we were talking about Survival prepping and guns. I had to admit that I don't have anything other than a Mosin-Nagant rifle and a shotgun,...not counting my Walther .22 LR handgun. I got alot of jaw dropping stares, then alot of advice on buying AR riles. We'll see.

Haven’t yet order more food, but will do so soon. Planning on ordering a case of #10 of Chili Mac and Beef (60 servings) and a can of Scrambled Eggs with Ham (96 servings) from EarthWaveLiving.

be safe, Jim