Posted on 06/12/2009 3:21:05 PM PDT by appleseed
I think as a boy my favorite stories were always about epic journeys or quests. I always saw myself as the lone hero; bravely making his way through a barren landscape overcoming impossible obstacles and having fantastic adventures along the way. As preppers I think many of us still believe that WTSHTF our trip to “Get out of Dodge” will be an adventure such as those we read in books. I’m afraid however; the reality will be much grimmer than we can imagine. I fear that it will be more like The Road by Cormac McCarthy or the recent novel One Second After by William R. Forstchen , than anything else.
I live in the Chicago metropolitan area, yes far behind enemy lines so to speak, and have been a prepper for most of the last 10 years. Like many of us I must live in a big city because of my job. I need money to survive. Living here is no big deal if you learn to ignore the local politics. My kids are grown and I have no long-term attachments here. If the world falls to pieces I always felt I could leave in an instant. I have the requisite pick-up truck, keep it full of fuel, pre-positioned much of my supplies with my son at a relatively safe location in a small town (population 5,000) about 600 miles from here. I’ve got my G.O.O.D. bag packed and I’m ready to go when ever things go south. Or am I ready?
Let’s review my bug-out plan. Wait a second, I have no plan! This blinding flash of the obvious hit me as I was stuck in rush-hour traffic last Friday evening on my way to my son’s. It took me nearly three hours to get from my apartment on the far north side of the city to I-80 on the far south side. This was the route I assumed I would take to skedaddle. Think about that; I was on Interstate highways the whole time, leaving at 8:00 PM, and it still took me nearly three hours to go less than 80 miles. What’s really scary is that I was thinking all along how light the traffic was. I had no alternative routes in mind. Yikes!
Well, I’ve got to tell you this dear readers, that realization scared the bejeebus out of me. I was so unready to bug out. I had the stuff, the means, the mindset, etc., however, in a meltdown near-panic situation, I would’ve have been just one more member in a stream of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the big city. This experience got me off my duff and forced to review what I will do when the next shoe drops in our ongoing economic nightmare.
I drew up a list of what was necessary to implement an action plan to “Escape from Chicago 2009”
1. Have a bug-out kit ready at all times a. No problem I have a bug-out bag packed and ready to go. No last minute packing required. However; I hadn’t checked it in quite some time and when I did I found plenty of things to replace and replenish. Batteries lost their charge. Foods had expired. So did many of the common medications I packed. BTW, I also now have a 72 hour bag with me whenever I leave the house. You can never be sure when the worst thing you can imagine will happen.
2. Bring as much as you can with you. a. Unlike many of you, I am not a man of any particular religious belief system. However, like most of you, I feel what makes us truly human beings is our compassion. I have to say that I don’t think while bugging out, I could look a frightened hungry child in the eyes and say no - nothing for you. Bring more than you need. If you don’t need to share then all the better; there’s more for you when you reach your destination.
3. No stopping to buy last minute items. a. If it’s so bad you need to be bugging-out do you really think others don’t know that and are at that very minute stripping the local Wal-Mart clean? During the Los Angeles riots in 1992 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the grocery stores were near impossible to get to and if you could, it didn't matter; they were closed, or had been looted, and were empty. Also, shop owners, for example, may attempt to defend their stores with firearms (a la the Los Angeles Riots) and you don’t want to be caught in the crossfire. I know, I know, Chicago has very strict gun laws so there won’t be any shooting except by a few gun-toting NRA/survivalist types .
Finally, one interesting image comes to mind when I think of someone “liberating” goods from a Wal-Mart. During the Katrina emergency I recall seeing a video of a very obese woman wading through chest deep flood water, polluted with who knows what, holding a Dyson vacuum cleaner she had “liberated” over her head. No electricity, no home, no floor for that matter, but she had an expensive vacuum cleaner she had probably always wanted. Also, an interesting side note is the lack of bookstores looted.
Read the rest of this letter at http://survivalblog.com/
One useful item to have is a GPS unit. On mine, I can tell it to plan a route that does not use highways. Every once in a while, it seems like it would be a good idea to see how you would be able to get out of Dodge using obscure back roads.
I can’t imagine my wife not being “aligned” with me. I filled an info-warfare role courtesy of DoD for a number of years, so we’ve had elevated paranoia for a long time anyway. :-) Here lately though, I do believe she has surpassed me in her viewpoints!
Also, if you have a large dog or two, do not hesitate to take them along. Find backpacks for them. They are good hunters, good watchdogs, and good sources of warmth.
GPS (more importantly, the internal map feature) could be useful in discovering back-road routes, which could then be marked on paper maps.
google maps also has a nice feature, where you can tell it to map a route from A to B, and tell it to avoid highways. You can also click on a point in the route, and drag it so as to avoid a particular road, and it re-figures the route.
I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.
Amazingly what I learned...
If everyone keeps their cool...stores will be giving away their meats, milks, eggs, water etc. It will be thrown away anyway. Even the last of their ice...they gave away.
Neighbors ...funny....I met more people that night on the front porch of my house than in the last 10 years living here. And those introductions...have held up. We may not get together and chat, but we all wave at each other as we pass in cars or on evening walks.
We held an impromptu block party the second night.
We all gave fuel for the generator to keep the old man's oxygen running...
Sometimes, the survival groundwork starts with laying down the relationships.
Thanks for the advice PB.
While I’m aware that there are situations where GPS might be unusable, and for that reason also keep paper maps in my car, for situations where GPS is working, it’s nice to be able to just focus on the road and not have to juggle maps and written directions and have to examine road signs that may be small, obscured, or missing.
I'm with ya there. The cubicle sitters should be tender but pour on some bbq sauce should be good eats.
Seriously, we're probably better off right where we are. Land, wildlife, and a roof over our heads. If the poo gets too close, we have land even further out down lesser traveled roads.
Heck...we live on the edge of a pretty good sized city....and we have a herd of deer who wander through our neighborhood regularly.....would be lots of competition for them, however, most liberals don’t have guns!!!
ALL of your needs should be layered with say navigation being GPS, then Map and Compass and even have some sat pics of the region printed up before the power goes off. And finally learn to navigate using the stars at night and shadow sticks during the day. Remember a simple sewing needle magnetized before the flare goes up or after by using a rock etc ....can be floated on a small leaf in a puddle or plastic cup and it will point north.
I am of the mindset of a few here......I bug out only after being forced by the event or the authorities . My system is layered with my home first and primary shelter with supplies that will get me thru without utilities just fine. Second are my motorhome or 5th wheel trailer with a towed vehicle or vehicle towing the trailer. Third just the vehicle, 4th afoot with gear in the form of a long term survival ruck with tools and gear that will get me food and water and shelter for the long term without support. Fifth .....on foot with maybe a small pocket size personal survival kit (psk), a Swiss Army Knife (SAK) or Leatherman Tool and a fire steel.
After that it’s down to making a fire with friction method, a squirrels nest / debris shelter and drinking from puddles and streams etc ......., gathering food with a rabbit stick . All without tools or gear of any kind. Just skills....... if such is upon me I am in deep trouble at that point .....:o)
My pockets have a small Swiss Army Champion, A Fire Steel, and a small altoid tin with some key goodies in it that will get me thru a few days in the wilds.
If it takes you hours to get away from your city during normal traffic, you WON’T get out during a crisis.
Move now, that’s my suggestion. Or plan to “bug in” and hope for the best. That’s better than running out of gas in terminal gridlock.
My new book is based around the federal reaction to a Richter 8 earthquake that wrecks the Mississippi valley. Here’s part that is excerpted on my website. It’s a long excerpt; this description of the aftermath of the earthquake in Memphis is about 2/3 of the way down.
http://enemiesforeignanddomestic.com/FESP.htm
Both men heard the zipper of the tent slide open, and turned that way. Jenny emerged, still wearing the brown camouflage trousers, but with a green wool military sweater for a top.
“The baby’s sleeping?” asked Carson.
“Yes. At least she’s taking the instant milk, and keeping it down.”
“Did we wake you up?” asked Doug.
“I slept a little. I was listening to your story.” She sat down on a folding chair between the men. Teenaged Zack was still snoring softly in his sleeping bag, blessedly oblivious.
Carson said, “There’s hot water in the thermos. You want something?”
“Hot chocolate?”
Doug went to a box and returned with a brown paper pouch. He tore it open and made the cocoa, mixing it in a mug on the table. Jenny sipped the warm liquid and stared into the space between the two men. Her long blonde hair, mussed and matted on top, spilled across her shoulders in the absence of the fur hat. Her bangs hung almost to her honey-colored eyes. She spoke quietly, because Zack and the baby were still sleeping. “I found something in one of my pockets.”
Jenny placed a small Ziploc bag on the table. Inside of it was a thin black rectangle: a pocket-sized notebook. Carson opened the plastic bag, withdrew the spiral-bound booklet, and opened it. She looked at Doug and said, “I’m glad you got away—that was an incredible story. It brought back a lot of my own memories. Do you guys want to hear it?”
Carson nodded, and Doug said “Sure.”
She sipped her cocoa, then took a deep breath, and began. “You were describing the January earthquake. I was already away from Memphis for the second one, but I was there for the first. My family lived in Germantown, that’s between where the two rivers almost come together. The Wolf and the Nonconnah, like you were saying. It’s about twenty miles southeast of downtown Memphis. That meant it was one of the only ways out of the city when the bridges went down. Our house shook but it didn’t fall down, thank God. We had some cracked walls, but we were lucky: a lot of houses did collapse. It was Saturday morning, or I would have been at school. My school pancaked…so we were lucky it happened when it did. In Germantown, the earthquake shook us around and broke some things, but I didn’t see it kill anybody. Not directly. Roads were buckled and cracked all over the place, so you couldn’t drive very far without making a lot of detours. The main thing was the gas and electric went out, and the water. That was all right at first. We’ve had tornados and ice storms that knocked out the power. We weren’t too worried. It always came back on in a few hours…or at least by the next day.
“Only this time, the power didn’t come back on. Not a blink, nothing. The whole system was down—telephones, cell phones, ATM machines, gas stations—everything. On the second day, when we were lined up at the Safeway supermarket, that’s when it started to get crazy. Police were there, trying to keep order, but the store employees said you had to pay with cash money. But the ATM machines didn’t work, so how could you get cash? People who didn’t have enough cash started to get angry, real angry.
“By then the refugees from Memphis were starting to walk out to Germantown. I’d been waiting in a line all the way around the block with my father, and then these people walking out of Memphis just started cutting the line, and pushing right to the front. Mostly black people, and Germantown is mostly white. It got ugly fast. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and yelling.
“People started saying we were stupid to wait while everybody else cut the line, and then they started pushing inside too, and the police gave up. What could they do? Shoot everybody? The police were a joke, useless. We waited in that line for six hours, my father and I. We were probably about number five hundred in the line to get inside the Safeway, and then the mob just pushed ahead of the line anyway. The supermarket was stripped bare to the walls by the time we got inside. There was nothing left. Nothing you could eat or drink, anyway. We felt like fools for wasting half of a day waiting in line, but who could you complain to? Nobody. We were fools, for acting civilized.
“We figured the electric company would get the power back on in a few days, or a week at most. Water became a big problem in a hurry. Our neighborhood was on city water, and it stopped during the earthquake. We were lucky because we had a swimming pool, so it wasn’t so bad for us. It cracked during the quake, but it still had a few feet of water at the bottom. We shared it with our neighbors on each side of our house; we let them dip it out with buckets. We used our propane grills for cooking, and for boiling the water to drink.
“And then on the third day more and more refugees started coming. That was Monday. Little groups at first, then big crowds, and then just continuous, like a parade. Mostly blacks from Memphis. Lots of them were pushing shopping carts full of stuff. Their own stuff or looted stuff, who knows? Our street was only one block off of Poplar Avenue, it ran parallel to it. Poplar’s a big street; it goes all the way into Memphis, and the other way it goes out to the country. We had a lot of people walking through our neighborhood. I mean, thousands, like a stadium letting out.
“At first, folks came up and knocked on the door, fairly polite, asking for water and food. They thought we were rich or something, because of our neighborhood. Somehow, they found out we had a swimming pool, and they wanted water. That sounds pretty reasonable, but then some of them started sitting all over our yard. At first we hoped they were just ‘resting’ but then it went from a few people to dozens to hundreds. We had whole families sitting all over our yard, camping out almost. Then our car disappeared. We could only fit our Expedition in the garage, so our Acura was parked in the driveway. Then it was gone, and the people sitting all over our yard just shrugged. They didn’t say anything; they just glared at us like we caused the earthquake or something. I peeked out through the curtains—only my father went to the door to talk to them. On the third day the refugees went right into our backyard too, and then we couldn’t get water out of our own pool. We were too afraid to go outside, not even in the backyard to get water. I was never a racist, I had lots of black friends at school, but this was different. I was scared to death every minute. The people outside didn’t seem grateful for the water, they seemed more angry. Resentful, I guess because we had a little swimming pool.
“In the afternoon of the third day it started raining hard, cold hard rain, and people started banging on our doors. Women. There were men too; in fact it was mostly men outside. I think they sent the women knock on the door, just to play on our sympathy. They were pleading for us to open up, and let them come inside and get some shelter. They said they had babies and children with them, please God have some mercy and let them in! And about then there were some loud bangs around the neighborhood, and I just knew they were gunshots.
“My father didn’t have any guns. He didn’t believe in them, can you believe that? Didn’t believe in them! That’s like not believing in rocks, or hammers or knives. He didn’t believe in guns! Well, some of our neighbors must have believed in them, because we started hearing gunshots, and it was pretty obvious that no matter what happened, 911 wasn’t coming, not with the phones out. The police were not even a factor. I don’t know if they all ran away to look after their own families, or maybe they were guarding something more important than our street. Whatever it was, we never saw them around our neighborhood after the second day, during the riot at the supermarket. After that, they evaporated. Disappeared.
Escape from...? Well, owing to what I witnessed in DC on 9/11 you can anticipate having to bug out on foot. Whatever else you do, keep a stout pair of walking shoes and a good rucksack at work. But most of all, think FEET! Take care of them, and they’ll take care of you. Plan now on what you intend to do: bug out, or hunker down. Escaping any urban area 12-24 hrs. post evac order gets complicated. If the local gentry doesn’t hunt you down and eat you, the National Guard or LEOs will hamper your departure. I’ve planned for being in the open and on foot covering 70 miles in three days, with two river crossings in order to make my bug out location. Chances of making it? Slim beyond 48 hrs. Bugging-out puts me deep into Indian territory for the entire route. Just being realistic. Hunkering down, however, is simply not an option in my case.
Right on ,,, Ran into the same type of “guys” when I was in the service ,, many years ago .
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.