paulr You say you won't be teleported to some desert island. Well you don't have to be to need the typical gear in a pocket kit.

Why even carry a survival kit everyday?

The reason for carrying pocket gear is three fold.

First is time.
Sure I can start a fire by rubbing 2 Boy Scouts together. Standard primitive skills training. Scenario I just fell through the ice. I'm soaking wet and my cloths are freezing stiff. The seconds or minutes between using a match or lighter versus constructing a bow drill and getting the fire going. That little bit of time could mean the difference. So gear buys you the time it takes to make the tool to make the tool you need.

Second is quality.
Sure I can make a cutting implement from the things I could find around me. But a steel knife blade works a lot better and lasts longer.

Third is confidence.
If TSHTF tell me you will not feel more self assured just knowing that the gear is available. That alone may make the problem smaller. At least in your mind and therefore easier to over come. Remember panic can kill you quicker than just about anything else. Just the time of breaking open a kit puts your mind in survival mode thinking. It keys your thinking from the situation back to your training.

By this do I mean forget learning primitive skills HE Double hockey sticks NO!!!

The skills are a great back up if your gear is lost, damaged or inadequate. Also if things last longer than expected they can improve your lot in the situation. Is gear the end all be all. No. You can only carry so much. How you use it, the skills to use it and the ability to make what you need from what is available is how you survive.

To City dwellers that think Pocket survival kits are only for country people. I can give you at least 2 easily foreseeable scenarios for daily carry pocket kits. If you are in a city office 1 A major storm or earthquake comes about without warning. 2 A race riot. Remember Rodney King?

In either case your car is destroyed so no equipment other than what you have on you is available. Yes you have had the fore thought to stash a kit in your office. To bad you where at lunch down the street when the problem started and can’t get back All power lines are down so no electricity. This means no lights, no heat, and no phones. Cell phones don't work if there's no power to run the system or the system is just completely overloaded. And water main has broken and no pressure because the power to the pumping stations is out so you have no guaranteed clean water. Do to the problems even if you could reach them the authorities have more problems than just worry about you. Wouldn't be nice to be able to take care of yourself at least until they can get around to you be it several hours or days.

To start off with how do you get out of the office or the restaurant you were in with no lights? Reach into your pocket and pull out your flashlight of choice [Photon Microlight, Sapphire light, Mag Lite, Infinity ETC.] and find your way out. You are now one step ahead of the riot mobs or the displaced mobs from the storm or earthquake.

How do you get home? Answer: Walk. Taxicabs, busses and trains are probably not working at this time. Hopefully the shoes that you are wearing look dressy for your work but are comfortable for walking. Now what you need on your walk home. How long is this going to take. Remember you may have detour around areas that were affected by the original problem or other people that may be unfriendly to you. Which may cause it to take up to several days. Since the water supply has been damaged or contaminated you might need to purify some water to get a healthy drink. if you drink contaminated water you can now have a major case of diarrhea. This can cause serious dehydration to your system. So yes you can die thirst in the middle of a city.

On your long trek home wouldn't it be nice to start a fire at least for comfort and warmth. You could also cook the pond fish or park squirrel you caught with the supplies in your kit. Remember that daytime and nighttime temperatures can vary 30 to 40 degrees with a 10 or 20-degree wind chill factor. To make matters worse is now raining you are soaked. So that nice 70 degree day you started out with is now the equivalent of ten degrees. Have you ever heard of hypothermia.

The large plastic bags can serve as shelter or a poncho It will block the rain and wind And help hold in your body heat. Smaller bags can carry the water you purified.

The first aid portion of a kit can clean that cut you managed to acquire somewhere in your wanderings. It could develop into a life threatening infection in a short time. Remember if we are talking a major disaster. What medical services that are available are going to be more concerned with far more seriously injured people.

Most components of in a kit can be used in many ways. Fishing line can also be used as thread to repair damage clothing. The fishing hooks can be straightened for a makeshift needle
Snare wire can be used for so many things it would take too long to list.
Multi-tools and pocketknives, how many things may need cut, bent, screwed, filed, or open that can of beans you just found.
If you look around an use a little improvisation many of the things that would only be used in the wild can be useful in the city also.

True after a disaster you could probably pick up many odds and ends on your trip. With luck it might even be a fairly complete kit. But these things are something you can’t count on. A daily pocket carry kit gives you a minimum start on the essentials.

This is not meant to insult those that live in the city. It’s just that due to their normal work environment [Offices] and normal dress mode find kit carrying somewhat more awkward. Because of this start to think do I really need to carry equipment on me. The answer to that as you can see is a resounding YES.

Now I admit that most of the people that post on any survival type board tend to live in more rural settings and see a greater need for carrying a little more equipment on our person. Also probably most of us have been in situations were without what we carried have been seriously instead of an inconvenient happening. And by the same token have thought it would've been nice to have, fill in the blank, and added a few more things to our kits.

Also being a gadget person I like my toys and to have them with me.

I live in the burbs and work in a major city and I couldn't agree with you more. Very well said. My EDC and PSK are basically one and the same as I carry a full PSK-type supply of gear day in and day out. Someday soon I would like to post the contents of my EDC/PSK gear and get suggestions on it from people like you who have obviously given much careful thought to the subject. BTW as a person that carries a good supply of gear on my person on a daily basis also agree with you that gear is certainly not a replacement for good primitive and improvisational skills.

In the event of earthquake or race riot at the office, first I'd have to decide whether to try to get home at all. I might be better off staying in the office til things calmed down.

The stuff about catching park squirrels and pond fish for survival is silly. It takes several days for starvation to even remotely become an issue. By then, if there aren't relief supplies, we have a much bigger problem than just some earthquake or riot. I'd rather go for 2-3 days with no food, than risk poisoning by eating those park squirrels. As for fire starters, I'm much more likely to be trying to get AWAY from a fire than trying to start one. And if I really need to start a fire in a city, I can find someone who's smoking and ask them for a light.

Water is more of an issue but the office has a refrigerator full of soft drinks. If they get warm because the power is out, that's no big deal. You do make a good point in that I should try to remember to take a few cans if I do leave the office in some disaster. Come to think of it, there's usually some junk food there too. Also, the office (as required by OSHA) has a first aid kit on the wall, along with fire extinguishers. If I can't get the office soft drinks and there's rioting outside, the rioters may be looting the stores for jewelry and consumer electronics, but they'll probably leave the bottled water alone.

Knife and flashlight: they're on my keychain (Spyderco Jester and matching Photon II, and sometimes an Arc AAA). Even without the flashlight, the screen of my cell phone gives off enough light for walking around once I'm dark adapted (it still lights even if the phone service is out).

Shoes and stuff: yes I wear comfortable shoes (hiking boots actually) almost all the time. Fortunately I don't work in a suit-and-tie environment. In cold weather the most important thing is probably warm clothing, and I do usually have plenty of that. In fact sometimes I have a sleeping bag at the office for those occasional all-nighter deadline crunches.

I just don't imagine needing any of the stuff like signal mirrors and spark wheels that's in a typical outdoor survival kit.

Remember that if I'm trying to do my absolute utmost to survive every fantasized contingency, my best bet is to move out of the city and into a fully equipped underground bunker and never venture outside. I take a calculated risk by going to work at all. The idea of a PSK is to have options in scenarios that are actually plausible. I might be able to concoct some imagined urban disaster where the stuff in (say) the ETS PSK might have helped someone, but I don't know of any real-life urban disasters that have actually happened, where it would have had much chance of helping.

Finally we'e left with the gadget appeal. There's nothing wrong with that (i have dozens of flashlights for basically that reason), but we should not confuse it with practicality.

I also use a zippered wallet for my PSK. It's hidden in my back pocket as I type this at the office, and nobody is the wiser. I would say it's more for convenience than for survival. You never know when you'll need a band-aid or a safety pin. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

More often than not, like beauty, practicality is in the eye of the beholder...I'll stick with my gear. If you choose to go without, it's your choice...I sincerely hope you never find yourself in the position of thinking to yourself "If I only had..."

Troy