The point of the longwinded post to follow is to challenge me (and you) to think about the depth and breadth of the possible threats and our preparations to deal with those threats.

The post topic is as much a philosophical question as it is a practical one. Since 9/11 I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to prepare so as to protect my family and myself. I’ve put together BOB’s for each member of the family, I have EDC stuff up to my elbows, I got my ham license, I’ve spent a lot of money on stuff I hope I’ll never have to use and I’ve joined this great forum.

So here’s the rub, for exactly what am I planning, building and buying? I’m not an outdoorsman. My wife’s idea of ‘roughing it’ is the Holiday Inn instead of the Four Seasons. I don’t travel through wilderness areas, hunt deer, kayak, etc. All that stuff is what my DD does in Alaska. Me, I ride down interstates, walk the streets of DC, hop Amtrak, occasionally ride in airplanes. I don’t live in an earthquake or a flood prone area. Occasionally, I might be stuck at home for a few days because of snow or ice storms. But in 24 years of living in my 120 year old brick house I’ve never had reason to even consider evacuation (well, there was that roofer who set my house on fire 10 years ago, but that's another story)

Sure, I might get stuck on an interstate (think I-80 in Pennsylvania last winter) or I guess an Amtrak train crew might hold me hostage for 10 or 12 hours. But I don’t drive when the weather’s bad and it would only take a few minutes walk from a stuck train to find shelter along any part of my normal route. Could a terrorist attack strand me or render my home uninhabitable. Sure, but I’ve got lots of relatives in different parts of the country, all of whom I could get to in a few days time at the most by car.

I think I have most of the obvious and likely threats covered. If the Yellowstone super volcano erupts or we get hit by a giant meteor our futures won’t be covered by a few days rations and some stored up water. Those are extinction level events. At my age not sure I care and my kids are old enough to decide their own end of the world fates.

What I’m struggling with is the balance between risk avoidance and contingency planning. I avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time as much as I can. I don’t drive in blizzards, don’t walk down dark alleys (literally or figuratively) and don’t stand on a beach and watch bemused as the ocean retreats way far away from the shoreline.

My contingency plan is to be prepared so that if the stuff I can’t avoid or can’t control hits the fan I and all my D*’s can survive until the 101st Airborne arrives.

(At this point you can skip the rest of the post and move on with your lives or read thru a little more detail so you can really let me know what I’m missing or let me know I’m full of it.)

Family consists of me and the DW, a crazy dog (a JRT, you who know will understand) and a couple of cats living in SE Pa. Two DD’s out on their own, one close, one far away. An elderly mom, also close by. Siblings in a variety of places. Stuck between middle age and senior citizens’ discounts at Perkins.

Job puts me in a car 10-20 hours a week and up to 150 miles from home. I own the company so if the weather’s dicey I work at home (and so do my employees). I travel to our nation’s capital by car and train on a regular basis. Carry a federal ID (I’m a beltway bandit) and know lots of govt. folks, neither of which would be helpful ITSHTF.

I have well stocked BOB’s in all the cars; my EDC is extensive ( see my earlier post ) and I have additional days of supplies, water and shelter in the house ready to throw in the car a on few minutes notice.

I don’t have weeks or months of food/water stored in the house. I don’t have extensive evacuation plans, routes, etc. I don’t have a usable firearm (nor the training to use it) and not much else in the way of personal protection. I don’t have any formal survival skills or much wilderness experience (I was raised in the country and played in fields, woods and streams around my home as a kid so I’m not “scared of nature”). Blast, I am not. (Though I have had my share of defeats at the paws of cats who didn’t want to do what I wanted them to do.)

So what am I missing in terms of threats? What’s the one thing I should have to be fully prepared that I haven’t mentioned? What really worries you? What is your philosophy of preparedness and does it match you threat reality?

Andy

Hi Andy,
I think you are on the right track without being paranoid.
Having food/water, a way to cook and stay warm without utilities, some emergency tools, extra clothes and a good first aid kit are the basics that everyone should have at home as well as in the car (even though one may travel only short distances).

The rest of the contingencies are less likely but you will still need the basics anyway.
Beyond that it depends on how you feel about the status quo; if you believe that TEOTWAWKI is around the corner then gear up. If you don't think that a big change is coming then the basics will do fine for 99% of what may happen (winter storms, power outage, flooding etc.)

Thanks, Andy, for raising this question. Without a sense of what we are preparing for we can get caught up in a mindless accummulation of gear as we convince ourselves that "If I prepare for everything, then I'm ready for anything."

Some of us may have noticed this tendency on other preparedness/survival sites--this is NOT a problem on Equipped to Survive/Survival Forum--where every preparedness issue or question is answered by advice to add more and more gear, and where no BOB is considered adequate unless it has six knives (two of which have to be exotic specimens from the Himalayas or Indonesia), two axes, a field-grade FAK capable of handling multiple victims suffering a range of afflictions from arrow wounds to burst appendices, and two firearms with 1500 rounds of ammo. Again, I want to emphasize that this "more is better, and a lot more is a lot better" approach to preparedness is not a problem on this forum.

My approach is to go with the odds. I live in coastal California where the dangers of a major earthquake or a wildfire are much more immediate than the prospect of a general breakdown of society in North America. I have actually had to deal with both quakes and fires. So, I prepare for what is likely, not what is possible. As I've said elsewhere, in preparing I ask myself "What will I certainly need?" should the big quake occur, not "What might I possibly need?" It is much more likely that my family will have to temporarily evacuate to a reception center or "bug-in" at home for a few days until power and services are restored than have to take to the wilderness and fend off marauders in some post-apocalyptic world.

I prepare for what is likely. Am I prepared to deal with a comet striking earth or a post nuclear winter? No, but I'm really not that worried.

Good points, Andy.
I guess it all depends on what your assessment of the threats your region is susceptible to. I've heard some people say that living in a city is almost completely "artificial", with all of our needs being magically delivered to a faucet, furnace, or grocery shelf on a reliable basis. As people lose their knowledge/ability to perform those once necessary tasks, they are more reliant on someone else to provide them.

When you look at what has already occurred to the just the US in the last 100 years or so, you'll see that there are a lot of potential threats to the "Fragile Shell" of modern society. Some things haven't occurred in the US, but could. I put together a little look at these threats at http://tirec.mysite.com/rich_text_2.html

I'm still trying to figure out just how much to prepare and for what. Money, time, space, family requirements all have to be figured in for me.

Good luck and thanks for the reality check.

Not all the things I prepare for are major mass-extinction level events.

What I try to do is be prepared for WHATEVER happens. A short while back I took my daughter to a horse show. (She placed sixth in a field of 17 - this was her second show.) One of the people in the group had a headache, and wanted some aspirin. I had the aspirin. Another person cut her finger - I had the antibiotic ointment and the bandage.

I use my SAK at least 3 or 4 times a day.

With what I carry, I could do nicely for an extended period in just about any kind of weather and terrain. Will I need it? Hopefully not, but if I DO need it and don't have it shame on me.

I prepare because I'm not willing to lay down and give up. I prepare because being prepared makes my mind easier, and sometimes makes my life easier.

Besides. It's just plain fun sometimes to work on the gear.

Hi Andy

Your approach is similar to mine. Cover the most probable things. You mention that you travel to DC by both train and car. I assume you are going to meetings with you clients. I've been around DC a long time, and have had a couple of experiences that you might want to include in your plans.

In 1968 during the riots, public transport shut down. There were only a few safe routes in and out of the city, and only by car/motorcycle/walking. I don't see anything like riots in the cards, but even a small terrorist attack would, I think have the same effect. You might have to either walk a long way, or hunker down in your client's building.

I was also in the Pentagon for a meeting the day when, during a snowstorm, an Air Florida jet crashed into the Potomac right next to us. Didn't make it home until the next day. The bus that was supposed to pick everyone up never showed. . .

It sounds like you have everything pretty much covered, but if you haven't thought about what happens when you are in that meeting in downtown DC, it would be worth some extra thought. And given the increased security in some of the buildings, you may not even get a SAK in with you. I've seen several confiscated. Makes planning harder.

billym, If the big one comes it will be a statistical anomaly and very annoying. At that point all bets are off and no amount of preparation will be enough. But regardless if you or I make it through I think the human race will. Just us and the cockroaches...



Grant, apparently you don't watch enough TV, not including the SciFi channel I think I could have seen a half dozen shows last week on the end of the world.

I agree, prepare for what is most likely to happen and for what I can manage in those circumstances.


Tirec, read thru your site, I won't be able to sleep for a week, criminey! I just go back to what my friend the mathematician tells me about statistics "they're only numbers'.



Farmer, Amen brother!



Fortunately one of my sibs lives in the District so even if public transport is out or I can't drive I could probably walk there in a few hours time and my EDC would carry me thru. Haven't had any trouble with the DR PSK at my prinicpal work place but I leave the knives and other items of interest home when I need to go places where I have to pass thru security check points.

That's a whole other rant, the 'criminalization' of self protection and stripping of our kids' instinct for survival. (Next time on Oprah, 'how to fight off a mugger using Martha Stewart pillowcase...'

Sorry for going off topic.

According to your post, you seem to be more prepared for a bug-out than for a stay home/hunker down situation.

To tell the truth, I think bugging out is the last thing to prepare for, and staying home, self-contained, is the first.

Although you're not subject to much in the way of natural disasters, I suspect that man-made ones could cause lots of trouble.

Truck strike? Everything moves on trucks.

Economy collapse? Some say that if/when another depression hits the U.S., it will make the last one look like a picnic.

Terrorist attack or threat of same. Since no one would really know where it was coming from, it would be difficult to make plans within a very short time frame. Deliberate water contamination? Bomb to the local power source? Just a few little bombs taking down overpasses could probably cause quite a mess.

But walking the streets of D.C. Ooooooh! Now THAT'S danger!

Sue

I like what you say here. The easiest way to deal with a survival situation is *not to be there* -- that is, to live with a thoughtful and non-paranoid eye to the real hazards you might face, and shape your behaviour so that you are less likely to be in the middle of it.

That isn't possible 100% of the time. (Even as I speak, the carpet glue is off-gassing in my sealed bunker! LOL ;-). But I wouldn't be surprised if half of the obvious and likely hazards can be avoided. (Talking on a cell phone while you drive, for example?)

For the same reasons, I respect any survival manual that dedicates the first third of the book to "keeping your precious hide out of survival situations."

For example: I do drive in blizzards, on occasion. But if it's slick and visibility bad, I avoid rush hour whenvever possible. I buy the best ice tires available for my DW and myself (so when the fancy 4x4 SUV ahead of me starts doing 360s at 70 MPH, I have the option to be somewhere else, quickly). And if one of us is caught in a whiteout, during the daily commute, it's standard practice to grab a hotel room if you need one (or pull over and camp out for a while -- full kit in trunk).

Anyway, that's a long-winded way to say that awareness and understanding are the foundation of staying alive and well. The hardware etc. comes second (though it's entirely addictive to guys like me).

Susan, you raise a fundamental issue and one I was trying to address in my typical verbose story-telling style. The bug out scenario is the one that will likely occur without much warning and the need will be to act quickly. Also, it would likely to be of relatively short duration. (3-10 days)

What you're saying, I believe, is that there are scenarios of systemic collapse on a national basis that brings us back to maybe the 1950's or earlier. And things get rough and maybe we'll need to not venture out into public because there is chaos in the streets.

That's possible, but not probable to my way of thinking. If it does happen I think observant people will see it coming and prepare. ITSHTF nationally after a couple of weeks it will be clear that help is either on the way or it ain't coming and we're all screwed. (except for those with a year or two's worth of freeze dried food, a bunker and plenty of ammo) But I can't see a risk benefit anlaysis that supports that kind of investment. Hey, if I'm wrong you can have my share of what's left.

Practically speaking, I could hold up in my house, with or without electricity for a week or two. If I need to vacate my part of the country I have family who are far enough away that they will not likely be affected. If it's really bad I'll drive up Rt 41 to Amish country. They're the people you want to know if things go bad!

Andy

P.S. I grew up in the 50's, wouldn't mind living that again.