Urban Survival Operational Security - Reader Comments

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received the following comment under the Chris Martenson post,......"Anonymous said..... Interesting...If I were preparing for "the pending collapse," (looking through the eyes of the adversary) I would be targeting sites like this and finding out who the owners of such sites and map it out are (home addresses and such). That is how I would plan on "the pending collapse." The research would not take me long and cost little to nothing if at that. I know you cannot divulge allot of your survival information for evil doers with that mindset (they are out there), but I just thought I throw it out there for us readers who think the best of people."

UrbanMan Replies: I agree that developing information on prominent people who advertise Survival preparation, or some sort of Collapse preparedness, would be fairly easy to do. As far as targeting them (and them would include me) for their survival stocks would of course be possible, but people who would do this are 1 - committing a criminal act, and 2 – are cowards. Cowards would tend to seek easier targets. I guarantee you that me and mine are not easy targets. I fully expect to have at least four and maybe six people, who carry guns for a living, residing at my location just before and through a collapse. When I add family members who know how to use a weapons, then add my prepared neighbors into the mix, I have a great start for local security.

I know another group of shooters who just happen, not by design, to live in four houses adjacent to each other. They all carry guns for a living also. Each family are preppers and expect several people from their organization to rally there just before or after a collapse.

Many people, neighbors and others, know who these guys are, but I am sure they would be last people chosen to be hit for their Survival Gear, Equipment and Material….just too hard a target,…and refer back to my earlier paragraph criminals are cowards, and as desperate as they may be, will still choose to hit the easy targets.

Having said all of the above, your Operational Security (OPSEC) plans and practices must be developed to support controlling any information you do not want exposed. If you are going to be educating your friends and family on Survival Preparation you are going to be exposing critical information. You can still keep as much information covered as possible,..how much food you have stored, firearms and ammunition types and amounts, etc.

I think that most of us Survival planners have considered strap hangers and not only how we are going to deal with them, but if we incorporate them into your group how are we going to feed and supply them. This contingency has manifested itself into my Survival Preparations as in creased stocks of basic needs. I can handle additional people, but even then would be choosing the right people.

So in ending, I just did not know how to take your comment,…as a threat?,..or a warning?,..or just a tip? I going to consider it a reminder to consider OPSEC in all I do and ask readers to do likewise. Be careful when you private message other people on Survival forums as well.

Eyeryone stay safe. Stay ready.

Urban Survival Preparation - Chris Martenson's Blog

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com recently found a new and good site to visit. www.chrismartenson.com

It seems it is becoming more and more mainstream to have some type of preparation in place for, what we call "the pending collapse" and what others call "possible disruptions in society or the economy".

Chris Martenson does not bill himself as an economist. He tells people that he's a trained research scientist, and a former Fortune 300 VP. Most importantly, though he notes,....he's a concerned citizen.

Chris says that the next twenty years are going to look very different from the last twenty years. It is a worth a look at his site, http://www.chrismartenson.com/

Martenson talks about "Self Resilience". About having good water sources,...about being able to grow your own food.....about making our lives easier and just plain simple.

I like what I read on this site especially when he talks about for preparing for societal or economic disruptions,....that there is night and day difference between "being zero percent self-reliant and 3 percent".

This rings true to me since I field alot of questions from people on "Survival Preparation" and many of them decide not to get prepared in any form or fashion believing that they are either too late to get started, or whatever they do won't be enough,....so why bother?. Yeah, I know a defeatist attitude when I see it, but as I learned in my business, "You can't want it more than they do".

I posted pieces of what Chris writes below:

"What should I do?"

It can feel pretty personally overwhelming to learn about all the economic, environmental, and energy challenges in store for us for the rest of this century. There's plenty of work to be done by governments and businesses, sure—but what about preparing yourself and your family for this quickly changing world? The choices seem overwhelming. Where does one begin?

Six years ago, I began to address these questions for myself and my family. I'll be honest; my first motivation came from a place of fear and worry. I worried that I could not predict when and where an economic collapse might begin. I fretted that the pace of the change would overwhelm the ability of our key social institutions and support systems to adapt and provide. I darkly imagined what might happen if a Katrina-sized financial storm swept through the banking system. I was caught up in fear.

But I am no longer in that frame of mind. Here, six years later, I am in a state of acceptance about what the future might bring (although I am concerned), and I have made it my life's work to help others achieve a similar measure of peace. While I am quite uncertain about what might unfold and when, I am positive that anyone can undertake some basic preparations relatively cheaply and will feel better for having done so.

I am passionately interested in helping others to gracefully adapt their lifestyles and adjust their expectations to a very different-looking sort of future. I have no interest in scaring you further, or having you approach the future with trepidation, anxiety, or fear. Quite the opposite. I want to let you know that adjusting and adapting can be one of the most rewarding and fulfilling journeys you could undertake. It has been so for our family.

Just so you have a sense of the scope and the pace of these changes in our lives, I should mention that in 2003 I was a VP at a Fortune 300 company, forty-two years of age with three young children (the oldest was nine), living in a six-bedroom waterfront house, and by every conventional measure I had it all. Today I no longer have that house, that job, or that life. My "standard of living" is a fraction of what it formerly was, but my quality of life has never been higher. We live in a house less than half the size of our former house, my beloved boat is gone, and we have a garden and chickens in the backyard.

Peering in from the outside, someone might conclude that our family had fallen off the back of the American-dream truck with a thud. But from the inside they would observe a tight, comfortable, confident, and grounded family. We owe much of our current state of unity to the fact that we embarked on a journey of becoming more self-sufficient and discovered the importance of resilience and community along the way.

Anyone can do the same. But first, we must lay some groundwork and address the question, "Why prepare?" After that, we can delve into the details.

The Basics of Preparing
Becoming Resilient

In the interests of space, I am not reproducing all of Chris article, Part I - The Basic of Resilience",....please to go his web site and read both Part I and Part II.

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.