UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received the following comment on Bugging In from Jonathan: “(Bugging In) That's my plan-A. To dig in. Since I have no secondary property or location in which to bug out. I have the home field advantage in that I know the area and the people. Have established good relations with neighbors. Have the reputation of 'being there' for everyone when they need help fixing something or borrowing a tool. Which could be a good or bad thing. Only time will tell. My Plan-B is head for the woods (public land) for a limited time if we had to leave our
home for a limited time.Civil unrest, natural/man made disaster etc. Maybe not the best plan. However if we HAD to leave the house, that's my current plan.”
UrbanMan comments: Jonathan, you sound like a confident person with a plan. I don’t know how many times I have written that Survival is a Team Sport,…dripping survival prep to your friends and relatives,….developing your team to survive Armageddon,….developing relationships with your neighbors,…..being prepared for strap hangers to show up to your location asking for help, whether you know them or not.
In the worst case of a collapse, people are going to be looking for leadership. The person they hold in high esteem will be able to make a huge difference in keeping a team or community together, leveraging everyone’s contributions and capabilities. The worse the collapse and the situations we find ourselves in, the more difference leadership will make.
In order for the team or community to survive, organization of effort, security and basic sustainment needs to be addressed,…in other words, the best team in the world will turn on each other once the food or water runs out.
You also have a good idea with a Bug Out plan. Can’t stress that enough – to have a Bug Out plan just in case your Bug In location is untenable and if staying there, death would be certain. Hopefully your public land destination has a full time water source and defensible terrain. It gets out living in tents or lean to’s, so a fixed site may be better but it also draws attention. Think about cache some supplies either enroute to, or close to your Bug Out location.
Showing posts with label Surviving Armageddon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Surviving Armageddon. Show all posts
Friday, July 22, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Urban Survival Planning - Buggin In,....May Be the Best Choice
Received a comment from Anonymous about Bugging In: "I like this idea of bug-in, and think it merits more thought than most survival sites give it. The biggest problem with bugging in as you state is limitations on food/water and concerns with armed gangs. Where I live in NW suburbia, water is not an issue. For a homeowner, there really is no storage limitation on food, meds and bullets
- just how much you want to spend. I live in a neighborhood with folks I know and trust already. Rather than cart the family off to the hills and realistically face a lot of issues with mother nature and the people who got there first, my plan is to bug-in also. We'll arm the neighbors and plan for a 1-yr stored-food scenario. "
UrbanMan replies: As much as I am planning on Bugging In, I also have a Bug Out Plan,...in fact, several plans and locations depending upon the situation and the threat. Of course, you are right in unless you have a lot of resources to stock Bug Out locations, the plan of Bugging In allows for the Survivors to stock a great deal of supplies and equipment,......unless you live in an apartment.
Bugging In, also requires some factors to be in place:
Away from refugees natural travel patterns for obvious reasons, and I would also be concerned about
a close proximity of jails and prisons. One of my clients lives in a sub-division next to a large country jail that houses about 1,200 prisoners. This is not a good thing.
Having knowledge of your neighbors; building rapport with them; and creating a semblance of a team, as survival is a team sport. A neighborhood watch program is a good idea and that program can be used to "drip" survival or disaster prep to these neighbors. Also allows them to build trust in you and for you to develop credibility. People will be looking for leaders during a collapse.
Have access to water and have the resources to grow your own food. And how huge would it be for all of your neighbors to grow vegetables as well? You can grow a few vegetables and give them to your neighbors now, and perhaps interest them in growing food as well. Especially if they are on a fixed income (aren't we all?) where this will pay off starting right now.
Sounds like you have you head on straight and there are more of us who put stock in Bugging In than not. Cheers. UrbanMan
- just how much you want to spend. I live in a neighborhood with folks I know and trust already. Rather than cart the family off to the hills and realistically face a lot of issues with mother nature and the people who got there first, my plan is to bug-in also. We'll arm the neighbors and plan for a 1-yr stored-food scenario. "
UrbanMan replies: As much as I am planning on Bugging In, I also have a Bug Out Plan,...in fact, several plans and locations depending upon the situation and the threat. Of course, you are right in unless you have a lot of resources to stock Bug Out locations, the plan of Bugging In allows for the Survivors to stock a great deal of supplies and equipment,......unless you live in an apartment.
Bugging In, also requires some factors to be in place:
Away from refugees natural travel patterns for obvious reasons, and I would also be concerned about
a close proximity of jails and prisons. One of my clients lives in a sub-division next to a large country jail that houses about 1,200 prisoners. This is not a good thing.
Having knowledge of your neighbors; building rapport with them; and creating a semblance of a team, as survival is a team sport. A neighborhood watch program is a good idea and that program can be used to "drip" survival or disaster prep to these neighbors. Also allows them to build trust in you and for you to develop credibility. People will be looking for leaders during a collapse.
Have access to water and have the resources to grow your own food. And how huge would it be for all of your neighbors to grow vegetables as well? You can grow a few vegetables and give them to your neighbors now, and perhaps interest them in growing food as well. Especially if they are on a fixed income (aren't we all?) where this will pay off starting right now.
Sounds like you have you head on straight and there are more of us who put stock in Bugging In than not. Cheers. UrbanMan
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Surviving Armageddon – A History Channel Perspective
We recently watched the last half of a History Channel show entitled “Surviving Armageddon”. It immediately held our interest while channel surfing as the program appeared to be what we are writing about – Urban Survival, and moving out of the cities to a planned safe area, requiring Survival Skills and Preparation.
All in all a good show, depicting what we believe to be a fairy accurate portrayal of what we could expect with a total infrastructure collapse from any number of incidents; Nuclear and/or EMP attack; Super Economic collapse; Pandemic, or a host or combination of others. The program talks about the cities emptying out as people go in search of food and water and safety.
It further discusses the human condition and how people are basically nice because they are comfortable, then the program asks the rhetorical question, “how nice would you be (to people in need during an infrastructure collapse) if you yourself were miserable”. To be sure, the generosity of humans is not infinite and you can be assured that people facing death from starvation will resort to barbarism.
The key actors were a man, woman and their teenage son fleeing the greater Los Angeles area into the Mojave Desert. We did not see the beginning of the show to see what point in the collapse did they make the decision to flee. The show did a good job of forecasting what the situation would look like with armed gangs possibly taking over food warehouses, electrical grid off, fuel and water distribution broke therefore water and fuel unobtainable.
The program depicted the man approaching an armed group looking for food. The man offers paper money, which of course, holds no current value. And just as obvious, the armed group is not willing to barter. The man leaves at the point of the gun and without his expensive looking watch for his efforts. The trio stops on the highway to take a break and think of what their next actions are. Upon seeing an approaching truck, the trio hides in the brush and watches as the truck stops and armed men steal the trio’s belongings and drains the van of fuel. Which brought to light another obvious point, your firearms (but he didn’t have any) and your bug out bag or individual kit are never more than arms reach away. So at this point the trio have nothing.
The show moves on with the trio trying to walk out of the desert, occasionally searching houses, either abandoned or with dead people on the porch, to search for water. The man does locate some non-potable water in a bucket which he filters through his shirt, starts a fire with a car battery and steel wool, and purifies the water. This is the high point for the depiction of survival skills, basically everything else they do is in haste, like searching other houses for water and not realizing the potential for water in hot water heaters, for example.
Once the trio stumbles into a yard to find, what presumably is, the family pet being cooked over a fire. A young girl tries to drive them off with a shotgun. The man takes the shotgun away from the girl only for the viewer to see him without the shotgun in the next scene.
We’ll end our review of the show with that, but will say that this show was worth watching and was advertised as being available from www.history.com, however after a quick search of that site we could not locate the particular DVD. The show was worth re-checking the history channel web site for its availability a few weeks from now.
All in all a good show, depicting what we believe to be a fairy accurate portrayal of what we could expect with a total infrastructure collapse from any number of incidents; Nuclear and/or EMP attack; Super Economic collapse; Pandemic, or a host or combination of others. The program talks about the cities emptying out as people go in search of food and water and safety.
It further discusses the human condition and how people are basically nice because they are comfortable, then the program asks the rhetorical question, “how nice would you be (to people in need during an infrastructure collapse) if you yourself were miserable”. To be sure, the generosity of humans is not infinite and you can be assured that people facing death from starvation will resort to barbarism.
The key actors were a man, woman and their teenage son fleeing the greater Los Angeles area into the Mojave Desert. We did not see the beginning of the show to see what point in the collapse did they make the decision to flee. The show did a good job of forecasting what the situation would look like with armed gangs possibly taking over food warehouses, electrical grid off, fuel and water distribution broke therefore water and fuel unobtainable.
The program depicted the man approaching an armed group looking for food. The man offers paper money, which of course, holds no current value. And just as obvious, the armed group is not willing to barter. The man leaves at the point of the gun and without his expensive looking watch for his efforts. The trio stops on the highway to take a break and think of what their next actions are. Upon seeing an approaching truck, the trio hides in the brush and watches as the truck stops and armed men steal the trio’s belongings and drains the van of fuel. Which brought to light another obvious point, your firearms (but he didn’t have any) and your bug out bag or individual kit are never more than arms reach away. So at this point the trio have nothing.
The show moves on with the trio trying to walk out of the desert, occasionally searching houses, either abandoned or with dead people on the porch, to search for water. The man does locate some non-potable water in a bucket which he filters through his shirt, starts a fire with a car battery and steel wool, and purifies the water. This is the high point for the depiction of survival skills, basically everything else they do is in haste, like searching other houses for water and not realizing the potential for water in hot water heaters, for example.
Once the trio stumbles into a yard to find, what presumably is, the family pet being cooked over a fire. A young girl tries to drive them off with a shotgun. The man takes the shotgun away from the girl only for the viewer to see him without the shotgun in the next scene.
We’ll end our review of the show with that, but will say that this show was worth watching and was advertised as being available from www.history.com, however after a quick search of that site we could not locate the particular DVD. The show was worth re-checking the history channel web site for its availability a few weeks from now.
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