Why leave or "bug out" ???

[StagLefty]

I agree-great points in this thread. I am a prepper and believe that the last thing I'll be doing is running into the hills since I have everything right here.
2 books I recommend are "Lights Out" and One Second After". They have been discussed here and provide some good insight into what this thread is about.
The "trust" reference is huge in a SHTF scenario.
All that said I hope we never have to actually get into these plans but being prepared should be a way of life nowadays just for our well being and peace of mind.

[hollohas]

I live in the metro area but plan to meet the rest of my family in the rural area they live in. I live on the southwest side, so after a very short trip out of town I have mapped and driven the forest service roads to get to where I need to go so I can avoid the major hwys. I just don't trust anyone in our suburban neighborhood and supplies would be gone in an instant...after much thought, if I think the situation is shaping up to be one that lasts more than a couple weeks, we have to go. Of course I would have to make that call for my family in the first couples days at most.

If everyone could get there as planned, then we would have a nice sized group of people that would be useful in many ways.

Everyone should read One Second After by William Forstchen. Its a fictional book about an extreme SHTF situation after multiple worldwide EMP strikes. In this case they are in a rural setting and choose to bug-in.

That said, anyone read Bug Out or Patriots. I haven't but both look pretty interesting

[hollohas]

Stag beat me to suggesting One Second After...

[Wulf202]

not even considering the possibility of a bug out is like saying "this is where i'll die" and puting all your eggs in one basket. which may be fine for someone else but not me.

i dont consider a bug out a primary plan but i have plans should the need arise. anything from staying with a friend to moving 3 states back home.

there are many things that could force me to leave and i try to plan for as much as is forseeable.

[Byte Stryke]

In any SHTF Scenario, the FIRST thing you should be doing is:

1. Pack and get out
2. Go to the Store for supplies
3. Assess the situation
4. Call Family

If you didn't say #3 I Don't want your knee-jerk self around me.

Unless its a wall of water and we have 3 hours... I am sticking put and letting everyone else be victims 1-3,000,000

I have enough provisions to hole-up for a bit.

I will agree that trust is imperative.
I wouldn't even trust family members at this point. (ie Cousins, Uncles, Aunts)
Everyone will be looking for the easiest and most secure situation requiring the least amount of effort possible. (think refugee camp) If someone thinks you will provide that for them they will latch in deep, suck you dry and bail at the first sign of duress.

Now that Being said, going back to assessment. Unless you have an Older home (pre 1970s) I would not expect you home to be able to withstand much physical stress (400K Zombies) your "shelter" should be considered temporary and improvable. Always look to upgrade with minimal risk.

But to just say "Man if anything happens I am heading for the hills!" is poorly planned.
Simply because 2,999,999 other people had the exact same thought.


Just a few of my thoughts.
your opinions may vary.

[2008f450]

The point of this thread was to exolore that option that I rarely if ever see. My own planning looks a little more like this.

1. Asses the nature and magnitude of event.
2. If I can stay put and keep my kids/me safe I stay.
3. If I can join up with a known group of like minded people go.
4. Have trailer (well stocked at all times) will move to higher ground.
5. If all i can take is go bags and a couple guns God help me Im roughing it. Put it in 4 wheel drive and get to really high ground.
6. If all else fails and its that bad lead trumps gold. I do what I have to do to keep mine safe.

I look at as many different scenarios as possible. My wife will tell you my mind is racing all the time with what ifs. What if I do get that great job and we can put away for the kids college. What if I do have to draw my gun in this place or that place. What if God forbid I do have to protect my family from "friends" when the SHTF. I just like looking at it all and having an idea of what to do. keeps me from becoming a mindless drooling leming.That is why we have go bags in all vehicles. Trailer is always stocked. I have food and supplies for 4of us for 9 months comfy and a year if we thin it a bit. I have rifles to hunt with to suppliment our stored food and to trade with because someone will be hungry and have something i need. But I try to look at as much as I can. Not just go bags and guns. What will I be using to get there. A honda civic or a 4x4 diesel that can run on bio fuel or transmission fluid if need be. Some call it paranoid. I call it being as prepared as possible. I wear a seat belt in my car just in case I am in an accident. I carry a firearm just in case someone tries to harm me and mine. I prep for SHTF just in case I have to protect mine from the liberal idiots that thought the government will be there to protect them when it gets ugly.

I have lots of questions and few answers when it comes to this stuff. But I try to stay a few steps ahead of the masses that will be crying for mama If it ever really happens. That said I pray we all get to play with our toys until we pass on from old age. May we never have to use them for any of these scenarios. But if we do may we all shoot straighter and be far me prepared than the rest.

[jerrymrc]

The point of this thread was to exolore that option that I rarely if ever see. My own planning looks a little more like this.

1. Asses the nature and magnitude of event.
2. If I can stay put and keep my kids/me safe I stay.
3. If I can join up with a known group of like minded people go.
4. Have trailer (well stocked at all times) will move to higher ground.
5. If all i can take is go bags and a couple guns God help me Im roughing it. Put it in 4 wheel drive and get to really high ground.
6. If all else fails and its that bad lead trumps gold. I do what I have to do to keep mine safe.

I look at as many different scenarios as possible. My wife will tell you my mind is racing all the time with what ifs. What if I do get that great job and we can put away for the kids college. What if I do have to draw my gun in this place or that place. What if God forbid I do have to protect my family from "friends" when the SHTF. I just like looking at it all and having an idea of what to do. keeps me from becoming a mindless drooling leming.That is why we have go bags in all vehicles. Trailer is always stocked. I have food and supplies for 4of us for 9 months comfy and a year if we thin it a bit. I have rifles to hunt with to suppliment our stored food and to trade with because someone will be hungry and have something i need. But I try to look at as much as I can. Not just go bags and guns. What will I be using to get there. A honda civic or a 4x4 diesel that can run on bio fuel or transmission fluid if need be. Some call it paranoid. I call it being as prepared as possible. I wear a seat belt in my car just in case I am in an accident. I carry a firearm just in case someone tries to harm me and mine. I prep for SHTF just in case I have to protect mine from the liberal idiots that thought the government will be there to protect them when it gets ugly.

I have lots of questions and few answers when it comes to this stuff. But I try to stay a few steps ahead of the masses that will be crying for mama If it ever really happens. That said I pray we all get to play with our toys until we pass on from old age. May we never have to use them for any of these scenarios. But if we do may we all shoot straighter and be far me prepared than the rest.

Thoughts (and this has been brought up just not easy to find)

Any thought of leaving ones home requires much thought and preparation unless one has the site stocked and ready to go.

Once you have you home set up with supplies and everything else to last a year then you can turn to thinking about leaving.

Start simple and work up. Having a good and diversified pantry is a start. you also need ways to prepare these things. Water, Food, heat, light, communications and the list goes on.

Take one step at a time. Want to have some fun? throw your main circuit breaker some day and see how long it takes before the family goes nuts. Like I said one step at a time. One more thing. Colorado is a different ball game than other locations. That is one of the main reasons this forum is here. What works in Texas (and the priority's) change when you get here.

You start at home and work it up from there.

[2008f450]

Thoughts (and this has been brought up just not easy to find)

Any thought of leaving ones home requires much thought and preparation unless one has the site stocked and ready to go.

Once you have you home set up with supplies and everything else to last a year then you can turn to thinking about leaving.

Start simple and work up. Having a good and diversified pantry is a start. you also need ways to prepare these things. Water, Food, heat, light, communications and the list goes on.

Take one step at a time. Want to have some fun? throw your main circuit breaker some day and see how long it takes before the family goes nuts. Like I said one step at a time. One more thing. Colorado is a different ball game than other locations. That is one of the main reasons this forum is here. What works in Texas (and the priority's) change when you get here.

You start at home and work it up from there.

Pretty much have them covered. Number 3 on my plans list is the only one not set up yet. In CA that one was easy. I had the land and family would fall back to my place with their trailers and help protect it. Here I dont have family so its something to explore. And we do test ourselves from time to time. We have gone with "lights and water out" scenarios for 2-5 days to see how we cope. I take my pack and go into the hills for 48 hours to see how well the things in my pack and my skills work. Alternate ways of travel have been mapped out and driven with trailer to see how it would go. Its an ongoing thing for me. The one thing I see from time to time I question is when I see people say "i will go to walmart and stock up when it gets bad". To me its too late at that point. And walmart is last place I want to be. IF i had to go stock up anywhere when It happens Im going to the pharmacy and stock up on meds and such.

[thecatsfan]

I live in the metro area but plan to meet the rest of my family in the rural area they live in. I live on the southwest side, so after a very short trip out of town I have mapped and driven the forest service roads to get to where I need to go so I can avoid the major hwys. I just don't trust anyone in our suburban neighborhood and supplies would be gone in an instant...after much thought, if I think the situation is shaping up to be one that lasts more than a couple weeks, we have to go. Of course I would have to make that call for my family in the first couples days at most.

If everyone could get there as planned, then we would have a nice sized group of people that would be useful in many ways.

Everyone should read One Second After by William Forstchen. Its a fictional book about an extreme SHTF situation after multiple worldwide EMP strikes. In this case they are in a rural setting and choose to bug-in.

That said, anyone read Bug Out or Patriots. I haven't but both look pretty interesting

I haven't read Bug Out or Lights Out (I can't find a printed copy and I don't like reading books on a PC screen because I stare at them 10 hours per day for work). I have read One Second After and Patriots. Both are very good books and I recommend them to anyone who wants to be prepared. But they have to be taken for what they are - one person's idea of a fictional situation. Patriots gets a little self-righteous and even pretentious at times. But still gives you a lot to think about.

A key point I think you will get from any of these books is the higher the population density of an area, the faster civilization will break down. And I agree with them. Cities cannot be sustained without technology. Too many consumers and too few sustainable resources produced locally. Food will be gone in a matter of days in most cities.

If you live in a big city and choose to stay put, in a short-term SHTF scenario you could probably survive just fine, but in a longterm TEOTWAWKI scenario, I think survival would be extremely difficult. There will simply be too many people looking to take what you have because they don't have it. De Facto governments and figureheads will declare martial law and confiscate anything of value to them for the "common good." If people can't take it, they will burn down your house with you in it just to spite you. If enough starving and armed idiots are outside your house and they think you have food, you will probably die before they give up.

To be prepared, I think one has to cover both a bug-out and bug in scenario, and more than one level of each scenario. I have a nice fifth wheel trailer that is pretty self-sufficient. Solar powered with over 200 gallons of total fresh water capacity. (I don't stock much food in it because the temperature fluctiations inside a stored RV can easily cut the storage life of even the best prepared food in half.) And I have places to go with people I trust. But what happens if I can't get to my trailer? Or what happens if my trailer gets damaged or destroyed, or even stolen, before I can get to a safe location? It's not hard to steal an RV. Just hook it to a truck.

I had to bug out about three years ago. Tornado took the second floor off of our home. I had 30 minutes to pack for the entire family and I did not know when we would come back. I knew I could go to a hotel, so this was not a survival scenario. But even in that "easy" to pack scenario, it was much harder than I ever could have imagined, and I was not prepared. As for my fifthw wheel, the one I owned at that time was laying on its side with water and food running out the windows and 4x4 fence posts driven through the flloor boards. If this had been a survival situation, and I was counting on that trailer, or anything in it, for my survival, I would have been up the preverbial creek without a paddle.

[Wulf202]

lightsoutthebook.com or search on amazon.com for it.

this is where jerry and i will disagree. the first thing i think you should do is have a bug out plan. then figure out how to avoid that from becoming neccesary and take those steps [which takes $] the planning is free or atleast inexpensive. and who knows what will happen while youre working towards the stocked pantry. you can have a badass pantry setup in an apartment and the idiot neighbor has a fire or floods you out. then what?