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Posted on 11/26/2012 9:42:52 PM PST by Kartographer
Coming home on Sunday I saw 15 accidents in a 20 mile stretch, one accident involving six cars in a tailgating fender bender. Most others were 1-2 cars, or single run off the road flat tire accidents.
This was under a 'holiday' weekend Wednesday and Sunday. What is going to happen when these folks are 'bugging out' like they hear on television? And if there is a real emergency? Where are they going to go if everyone along an Interstate Highway is bugging out at the same time? All points of the compass are going to be a parking lot within 10 miles of any major population center. Then What? Everybody gets out and walks? They wouldn't make it 100 yards before collapsing.
I don't think I can last long enough to get a piece of property and make preps, outside from the city. So I am trying to prep on site, until after the wave flows over us. I fear the European crisis and the Middle East war expanding. It is coming like a freight train and I can't get out of the way.
(Excerpt) Read more at survivalblog.com ...
Preppers’ PING!!
I can think of a worse case scenario, but it involves a wedding.
I live where I'm going to die, so land navigation isn't a top concern, even though I've got maps, compasses, and everything but a 2nd LT.
/johnny
Hey a 2nd LT. could come in hand especially if you can run fast than he can! ;-)
Marcella has a story about trying to evacuate that is both illuminating and heartrending, if we can get her to share about emergency travel.
/johnny
ATV with an oversized fuel tank,a boat an ultralight or a hot air balloon, take them as suggestions.
First off forget the highways. Either get above the road, around the road or use the river.
I recently picked up a used snowmachine that in a pinch will work as a bug out device. Out of most disaster scene movies trail bikes win the day.
So unless you have a Sikorsky Skycrane at your disposal to bring you car along and to get past the massive fleeing orgy of crazed armed soccer moms I would forget about using the roads, plan on living where you can use a river, or better yet a swamp with an airboat, even zombies fear crocs.
I still think the whole “bug out” idea is suicide, unless you are willing/able to do it via the back country on horseback.
The first 3% might get out before some clown with a near-empty tank runs out on the road ahead of you and you are trapped - open and vulnerable, prime pickings for people on foot or atv’s who are searching for supplies.
What about finding a ‘hideout’ somewhat close to home, away from the neighborhood (which will be burned to the ground) and away from the roads? Forming an army in advance of SHTF times, consisting of people in the neighborhood would be nice. Unfortunately, too many citizens are in 0bamabot mode and stuck in ‘normalcy bias’ mode. Not so sure they’d make great ‘soldiers’ anyway and would probably be a liability or even a turncoat when the food supply runs low. ‘Donner pass’ comes to mind.
For the vast majority of Americans, there will be an abundance of LUCK involved in staying alive. No doubt about that, given today’s total breakdown in morality and ethics. Mad Maxville here we come..
“Marcella has a story about trying to evacuate that is both illuminating and heartrending, if we can get her to share about emergency travel.”
I’ll post that for you shortly.
You don’t have to speculate what would happen during a mass bug-out. Just go back and look at the Katrina evacuation. Remember all the people who ran out of gas on the highway and blocked the entire road for hours?
Gridlock happens in a mass bugout. You would be better off living on the shore of a lake or navigable river and bugging out by boat. That would mean keeping a prepped vehicle in storage and keeping it ready to roll at a moment’s notice, and keeping it in a place of low density where you won’t experience gridlock there either.
I guess another way would be to live on the edge of town with ready access to dirt roads that connect to highways at some point. If you lived right at the edge of a desert, prairie or mountain and could just 4-wheel overland to a highway an hour or so away, then you could also avoid the density.
About the only thing you can count on is that there will be many unexpected things screwing you up at the worst times.
If your bug out location is in the country and you are in the city make sure you have multiple routes to get to the location.
Preferable via the not very well known gravel roads.
I can do it on foot. I have the equipment at the front door ready to go. I can be in a place that is safer than a thrashed house in about 10 minutes, without a flashlight, in the dark, without glasses (which are all in the bag if I'll slow down).
Depends on the situation. I worry mostly about tornados and straight line wind damage, and wildfires than anything else.
/johnny
I don't intend to rape, pillage, steal, or bear false witness regardless of the circumstances.
I will however, make quick value judgements about risk to myself and those I protect. Followed by whatever action is required.
I never intend to abandon my morality.
There are worse things than dying.
/johnny
Good of you to bring this to the fore. Bugging out is not the panacea most seem to think it is.
Yes, I was counting on morality and ethics, and nothing else to survive. /s
I wrote this for Survival Podcast where I post prepper articles and I added a little more detail for you about the nature of the surgery:
An example of my not being properly prepared when an unexpected emergency happened: This happened when this whole area of a hundred miles or more, mostly north and south and lesser miles east and west, lost power in the evening and no one knew why.
It was hot Texas summer, and a few weeks before this happened, my husband had very bad surgery and he was too weak/sick to stay in a very hot house. This surgery was unusual and most who have it do not survive. The surgeon did a bypass of his aorta artery that goes down the abdomen into his legs, and replaced that aorta with a nylon aorta, so the incision went from his ribs down his abdomen and into both legs.
I had to get him out of the house to a cool place. A neighbor said she talked to her sister who lived about 50 miles west and she had power. We determined to go that direction.
First, I had to gather what both of us needed to exist since I had no idea why power was off so didn’t when it would come back; news from the power company was they didn’t know why it went off and didn’t know when it would come back (strange situation but it happened). It was dark in the house - had to find a flashlight, go upstairs and gather clothes, personal supplies, all his necessary medicines and mine, go back downstairs, still using flashlight, grab a gallon jug of water, some kind of food to sustain us in the car since I didn’t know how long it would take us to get out of the massive car jam of thousands of people trying to get out of the area and didn’t know how far west we would have to go to find lodging once we got in an area with power.
Yes, I was frantic inside the dark house trying to find vital items we needed. I wasn’t even sure where a flashlight was when the power went out. It was pure luck we had a decent amount of cash and the car had just been filled. Without power, gas stations couldn’t pump gas and no ATM machine worked.
It was pitch black outside and no traffic lights. We got on the freeway and it was a nightmare with what seemed a million cars trying to get out of the area. As soon as we could, we took a farm to market road to the west to get away from the cars on the freeway. Going was slow because we didn’t know when we would come to a crossroad since no traffic signals worked so we watched for crossings constantly.
After we made our way west to power, we had to keep going more miles to find a vacancy in a hotel as others had gotten to that area before we did. We lost time because we couldn’t leave the house quickly to get ahead of some of the traffic.
Look at all the mistakes I made - my husband’s life was truly in jeopardy due to my lack of preparation to be able to leave the house quickly with what we needed and we would have been totally stuck in place if the car had needed gasoline. I was prepared for staying in place for a hurricane right then but not for quickly leaving my house. I vowed this would never happen to me again.
Don’t let the above happen to you. You can easily prepare now to leave your house quickly to go to a place of safety. A simple way to do it, is, gather what’s needed for a few days including a change of clothes, every necessary item you would need including water and already prepared food (food items such as those individual packets of tuna, crackers, granola type bars, cheese/cracker packets, etc.), plus a flashlight, pack it in a box and station that box close to the exit you use to get to your car. Make sure you know where a flashlight is in your house and always keep it in that place with good batteries.
After researching, I bought two Life Gear’s Wings of Life survival backpacks. Each is a three day survival pack with food, water and essential survival gear. Won’t list what’s included in them because the list is extremely long; you can look them up on the web if you want to know. There is also room to pack a change of clothes and other items you that are essential to you, such as personal medicines.
These two backpacks are in my most secure room fairly near my front door - the bathroom - that’s the most secure room in my house in case of a tornado. If the house falls down and we’re still alive in the bathroom, we’ve got three days of everything we need in those backpacks - and if we need to leave the house quickly at any time, all we need to do is grab those bags and we’re gone.
I did prepare another bag (on wheels), with more food and a way to warm it - think soup with meat/veggies and instant oatmeal, small can coffee, canned heat and Sterno stove for heating/cooking) and other items (one being camping metal plates/cups/utensils, plus two Melitta plastic filter cones and paper filters to make coffee). That bag is stationed not far from the bathroom to grab and roll out with us and the backpacks.
I wrote this article when my husband was still alive. He lived years after that and died a year ago last August with cancer of the brain.
Bugging out may not be a panacea for all SHTF scenarios, but a bugout plan and supplies have a lot to recommend themselves in many natural disasters/emergency evacuation scenarios.
Luck favors the prepared.
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