Posted on 06/04/2014 7:09:33 PM PDT by Kartographer
Best way to survive is not being close to any problems. Like I describe in my survival course about my experience in Balkan war I missed my chance to bug out in time. I ended up surrounded by enemy army and trapped in city for a year without power and regular resources. Everyone fighting for the little what was left and being shot at by snipers and artillery from enemies did not make experience any better.
There are many reasons why people fail to bug out. Last week Jay (guy I run this website with) left Bangkok because of military coup. He first did not want to leave right away but then common sense won and he left. You can read about what happened in our forum. Nothing bad happened after he left, but it could have.
There can be many reasons like failure to recognize that S. gonna hit the fan, blocked streets on the way out of the city, problems convincing everyone to leave or just some special events you want to stay for.
(Excerpt) Read more at shtfschool.com ...
Nor do you have hurricanes in San Antonio. What you have is swarms of people coming from Houston! ha!
Ya left out the mexicans. We do enjoy the numerous rescue attempts for stranded motorist during rainstorms. People still think they can drive through the arroyo when it pours. No.
Oils and proteins and the best part is since in the hull they don't look anything like what you see in the store they have less chance of being poached.
With Rita there were people from Houston that headed east and people from Beaumont that were headed west.
The Highway patrol were trying to direct people north but the amount of people on the road all at the same time the small towns couldn’t handle it people were stranded.
Along a major road in a major city there are more gas stations in 1 mile than there are in an entire small town.
Food, get an extra 100,000 people moving through and it’s gone even for a city with 20-30,000.
You are right. The best time to bug out of a city the size of Houston is to not live there to begin with.
If you don’t have a place to go, everything you need to get you there including 3 to 4 times the amount of fuel you think you need, and a vehicle you can take offroad because the roads will be blocked with cars out of gas, then you are better off staying put as long as possible.
Fact is things might be worse where your going.
I stayed during Ike. But I live way out on the NW side of town so all I lost was power for 8 days. We had plenty of food and we had ice chests to keep our refrigerated stuff until we could cook it. We still had gas and water.
A road map that shows all the county roads comes in mighty handy. You don't need the Interstate to get where you're going...
I’m inundated with pine trees, and no one in modern society knows how to harvest pine cone seeds (delicious, high protein).
There are videos “out there” of survivalists fighting over “scarce” food with decade-long pine cone seed food supplies right over their heads.
Modern man doesn’t even know what food looks like in nature!
With a natural disaster there is always a place to go unless the entire country is affected. You might play hell getting there but you still have a designation to go to that hasn’t been affected by the disaster.
With a nation wide SHTF unless you have your own place to go to there wont be anyplace to go if you live in a city.
With nation wide SHTF anywhere you go will be just like where you left.
A kind hearted stranger might take you in but finding a kind hearted stranger willing to take in stranger in a SHTF isn’t likely and it’s not something I would count on.
I’m not saying you should stay where you are regardless of what happens but the idea you can leave one city and go to another one and everything will be better is just wishful thinking. You could end up stuck on the road with millions of other people ready to take everything you have.
The cop was probably following orders from the Mayor of the town or possibly the Governor.
Depending on where he was, Rita wasn’t a hurricane to be driving around in.
You not only risk your own life but the lives of rescue personnel if they choose to save you if you get in trouble.
You also have a problem with some people driving around looting vacant houses.
Good way to get yourself shot in E Texas.
With Rita a lot of people took back roads, didn’t have the slightest idea where they were going they were just going.
I don’t know how many people had to turn around at my front gate when the road ended.
Rita was bad, but Ike gave a whole lot of people a new respect for hurricanes including me.
I’m about 20-25 miles from the coast, that’s close enough for me. I wouldn’t want to ride one out much closer to the coast.
We lost about 250 trees with Rita.
After Ike, I barely recognized my own property.
We lost close to 750 trees. Big oaks came down and took other trees and big oaks down which took more down. It was like dominoes falling.
Pine trees 2 1/2 foot round snapped like match sticks.
Some good ideas I had not prepared for!
I guess the mask in the trunk first aid kit might be too hard to reach quickly...adding one to the glove box.
Bug out for a single person is not my plan. Shelter in place on a barrier island is better for me.
Alcohol and iodine will be increased.
I can not see a need for night vision...but maybe if extreme
situation.
Thanks
One would think old timers would know when to get out before the flood waters get them, but they’re oblivious these days, too. One particular big flood we had, there was plenty of warning and the local tv stations were giving updates every few minutes. Even without the media, anyone with the tiniest bit of common sense could have figured it out. Still, people ignored the warnings. I’d brought all our stuff up from the lower land and hubby did the same for the neighbors when he got home although by then he was wading through rising water. There’s only one road out and it has a low water crossing so I was guesstimating a water level in our yard and hoping the crossing would be higher. IOW, we’d be cut off if I was wrong. We bugged out to the hills in the wee hours. Many people went to bed only to be woken up with several feet of water in their homes. At our neighborhood meeting a few days later, the old timers were shocked how I knew to leave. Seriously? 1) Common sense it had been raining heavily up from us for several days, 2)for two days the news gave warning, and 3) 12 hours out we knew a 23 ft wall of water was heading right at us. Duuuh! It was like that joke about God sending a boat and everything else to rescue fools who were waiting on a sign.
I am of the opinion that there are several “markers” that happen or will happen that are good clues to the need to bug out. These markers come in three main areas:
political / economic / transportation
political markers include everything from the first warning (massive wave type elections) to declarations of martial law.
economic markers include early warning signs of core goods price increases and soup lines (food stamps) getting longer to banks collapsing, bank runs, and a MAJOR warning sign of when people start raiding/breaking into ATMs. I am of the opinion that we in American are pretty far down this road
Transportation deals with the movement of people and goods. As a general rule, as long as goods and services can get tot he population, the situation is recoverable. When ships, trains and trucks stop movign, there is a rapid escalation in the SHTF meter. This is much more of an “over the cliff” indicator. Right now, there are a LOT of cargo ships that are sitting at “dock” with no cargo to move. Strike one, the next strike will be a significant drop off in train traffic. The “last” warning sign will be when the trucks stop rolling.
On a scale of 1 to 10 with one being everything is fine and 10 being SHTF yesterday, I would put America at a 5/6/3 right now. I am planning for it to get worse of the next 2 to 4 years. My goal is to have my own land, my completed house, completed food supply (aquaponics), an assault weapon and ammo for every member of my family and support group, a years supply of food and one primary and one secondary bug out position, first aid and lastly trade skills and crafts for barter.
I have a start on some of these, finished a couple of them. Still have a long way to go.
could you please add me to your ping list. thanks
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