What manner of disaster would justify bugging out? Immedietely following the Northridge quake I watched truck after truck negotiate the damaged, but navigable freeway and road system. They were carrying bottled water from THE NORMAL DISTRIBUTION POINTS in Los Angeles. The various agencies are going to be devoting their skills and resources IN THE CITY. How many times do you think Old Bald Guy rolled up to help a disabled motorist 50 miles from asphalt during his CHP career <img src="images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

My highly theoretical opinion on bugout is:

Scenario's like the Rodney King riots in LA and the DC anthrax scare had a lot of panic involved in a somwhat isolated area. Keep in mind these negative scenario's were caused by a verdict and a couple of letters.

I don't think it is beyond reason to assume that if a much larger situation were to occur the reason one needs to bug out maybe very easy to make.

My imagination can make that leap but not everyone's can.

Until then I plan for both bugging out and in, if i don't, fine no harm done.

Isn't that what being survival minded is about? Planning or at least having thought about the possibilities and making provisions to counter them. Reliance on the government or neighbours not being one of my plans.

Mike

Large cities "bug in" and "bug out" daily. Imagine that traffic increased 10 fold and desperation spurred on by sheer panic.

I was awestruck by the traffic that resulted from trying to evacuate the coastal areas of Georgia, North and South Carolina during hurricane Floyd. Imagine that a hundred times worse and more desperate!

As always luck has just as much a role to play as anything.

They key is to get out early if you can. One must make that judgement call. Not an easy thing to do but being prepared and having your stuff ready to bug in 10 mins has huge advantages.


I am not for bugging in or out but rather adapt to a given situation and be prepared for both.

Mike

Just as Beachdoc recalls hurricane Floyd, I have to remember the traffic snarls with hurricane Andrew here in S. Florida. It took many hours for government powers to realize that the toll plazas had to suspend tolls and open the gates to relieve the highway bottlenecks. In a bio/chem/nuke disaster the highways would be so clogged you'd probably be living in the car for 24 to 72 hours to get even fifty miles away. Mike is right - it's a judgement call, but I see bugging out as the last choice. We keep plenty of food and forty gallons of water on hand at all times. Don't see many pidgeons, but seagulls and Ibis are always flocking in the yard - hope I never have to roast one to feed the kids. Would probably use my air rifle to attract as little attention as possible. As for self defense, we've had a few riots here in the past too - things can escalate very quickly if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm just glad Florida is a concealed carry (permit) state. Regards, Keys

It's all about the scenarios. If you are in the way of a natural disaster with advanced warning it might be true folly to bug-in. It might also be impossible to bug-out. The stories on this forum about hurricaine andrew and floyd are testaments to these problems. It is worth noting though that those who did successfully bug-out from these hurricaines were much safer personally than those who didn't. OTOH there is no - NO way to protect your stuff that you leave behind from the "mob of angry villagers" that naturally takes control after such events. One suggestion that I have heard on other forums is the out-of-town self storage unit with back-up provisions. Whether this is Aunt Tillys or a locked trailer in a parking lot or a geo-cache in the state forest. Such a backup supply depot means that regardless of what befalls your home, it is unlikely to also simultaneously disrupt your backup. (short of armmeggedon). Most scenarios, including WMD scenarios that are likely will be, at most, regional in impact. There was a large exodus from Manhattan on 9/11/2001 but in a suburb or Boston (where I was working) there was a clear sense of life as usual. I even got a speeding ticket on the way home (as usual). Remember, also, that order was restored to NYC within 3 days with relatively little "collateral" damage to the ability of the city to govern and maintain the rule of law. It was much longer than 3 days before the area hit by Hurricaine Andrew was once again under civil authority - it was impressively long before it was even under military authority.

Depending on the location and scope of the situation the bug-out scenario might be quite as bad as the bug-in scenario. If there is wide-spread disruption and damage to infrastructure that stretches to months (BTW, IIRC those scenarios are ruled off topic) then the availablity of game in the country will be diminished radically and the woods will be populated with urbanites trying to hunt with whatever weapons they were used to using for drive-by shootings. If the scenario is Wild-Fire then an urban environment with a lake or ocean front might be much less vulnerable than a country environment. If the scenario is Earthquake then bugging-out might be completely impossible except on-foot which doesn't take you far or well prepared. If the scenario is urban riots then bugging out means abandoning all - ALL of your stuff but might be relatively manageable if you vehicle is not caught in the middle of the event and completely impossible if your vehicle is burned by the rioters. It's all about the scenario.

If you survive a scenario which disrupts governments ability to maintain the rule of law in the area that you are residing in you will need two things in the following order - Guns and Ammo, and friends and allies with guns and ammo, without these two things your preparations become as meaningful as the minimart left behind by the neighbor who bugg-ed out leaving the door unlocked and the shelves fully stocked - useless to you and available to the "mob of angry villagers". Friends and allies may be bought on the spot with stuff but that is expensive and not as worthwhile as having well prepared friends and allies ahead of time. I am not indicating that you should hoard what you have and not share - nor am I indicating that you should ignore stocking up on food and provisions because you can take what you want. What I am saying is that, If you have stuff and you indicate that by not needing stuff as badly as the next guy, then the next guy (who has Guns and Ammo - remember the 2nd ammendment says that he may and probably will) will come and level the playing field or completely decimate your stuff and you if you stand, unarmed, in the way. This is quite a different situation than you voluntarily sharing evenly so that you migh both survive better.

I'm all for remaining at home in the event of a disaster of some sort. Of course if home is a more dangerous place to be (some coastal locations in the event of hurricanes, some neighborhoods in the event of wildfire, South Padre Island in the event of Spring Break, etc.) then a bug out plan comes in very useful. Most people will choose to head to a family member or friend's place in another urban location. In that case, they should be involved in your "most likely scenario" bug out plans.

My problem is that I will possibly be in the "wilderness" when the "most likely scenario" for the Pacific Northwest happens (either earthquake or severe storm). I've made preparations to live out of the truck for a few days if necessary while the roads get cleared enough to get back home. I'd much rather deal with the aftermath of a large scale disaster at home where I know who should be in the neighborhood than in a strange location. Of course that protected cache of equipment, food and water is a pretty good motivation too. Chris's accounts of the Northridge earthquake convinced me that "better the devil you know" is sometimes the advise to follow.

I had the opportunity to meet with state Emergency Management officals about a year ago. They did learn something from the mass exodus caused by hurricane Floyd. While the North bound lanes of the expressway were a huge parking lot, the south bound lanes were completely empty.

Since then the state has made preparations to convert the interstates that pass throught the state of North Carolina, to all one direction. They flew a plane over all the the interstates and took arial pictures of each intersection. From that they deterined how many cones, orange barrels, and law enforcement it would take to redirect each intersection.

There are a number of issues with haveing traffic flow the wrong way on an interstate. All the signs are backwards. How to drivers know where is a good place to exit for food, fuel, restrooms, lodging, etc? All the stoplights and signals to regulate flow onto or off of the interstate are backwards. So you must have law enforcement at every single intersection to direct traffic. You must have cones, barrels or other devices to help redirect traffic around all the considerable normal markings.

Once in place and flowing is probably the easiest part of the job. But the conversion from 2 way to one or back will be significant. You would have to shutdown all entrances into the southbound for some period of time to clear it of any traffic. Then open it up to only North bound. Later it would have to be shutdown again, cleared of any wrong way traffic and then reopened for normal traffic.

Think about how an accident backs up traffic during normal situations. Imagine an accident on the south bound that is now traveling north. Emergency services may be stationed North of an accident and need to travel south to get to the scene. So they must travel surface strees to get South of the accident, enter the expressway system and then travel north to the scene. But which side of the expressway? If they are barriers or guard rails and the accident is in the "north bound" lane but all traffic is flowing North, which side does the caller really mean?

Thank you all. Glad to I joined this forum after lurking the site for so long.
"And now for something completely different" I won't ask another question but give something back: Starting next week my wife and I would lock ourselves in our basement-wannabe-not-quite-a-bunker for 5 days (7 if possible). For the rest of the world we'd be at my in-laws' cottage. There would be some cheating though... we have to take our dog to the backyard to do her business (not a complete test). But that only would be a few moments out of each day.
Apart from a cell phone to keep appearances up, the PC (my wife has 5 days off, I'm not, I work from home) and my trusty Grundig FR200 we'll be underground.
We decided to keep the TV unplugged since we'll have the PC. No electrical lighting, heating to a minimum (I have to keep the heating running upstairs or the pipes would freeze and burst, the wind chill is -23 Cº or -10 Fº as I write this).
The purpose it's to test the air quality, amount of food and water used, solar panels' real life test and... I'll be reporting on this Forum a log on what works and what doesn't.
And yes, we are nuts. Let's see how it goes <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Great idea...

Post often, tell us about all the snafu's you encounter. You should probably start a new thread for this once you get started.

I'm looking forward to learning a lot from your experience.

Ben