In the fire service, we have this thing called "Mutual Aid" - it's an agreement with other fire & rescue companies whereby we can call on them and they can call on us for help. In some cases it's "automatic" as in when we get dispatched to a certain kind of call - like a house fire - they get dispatched without us having to do anything. Other times it's at the request of the officer in charge.

Mutual aid agreements span all political jurisdictions. We have automatic mutual aid with two out-of-state companies, adjoining Bucks County PA stations, as well as medic squads and state police.

These agreements are legal documents - basically, they say that we agree to work within the coverage area and on the calls of the other station and vice versa. We agree to share material resources and staffing.

Thus, the last time I went into a fire, I was on the Nozzle, the guy behind me was from another company and the guy behind him was from a third company. The fire truck the hose was connected to was from a 4th company, and the water supply portable pond was from a 5th company. It works great.

This led me to think about the concept of mutual aid for what I think we can now safely call "Urban Evacuation Survival" (UES). This is not the same as holing up in the woods with a sniper rifle and MRE's - it's about being prepared for a family-scale bug-out that will keep you on the move for a while, possible to a new residence, and certainly on a journey that will take you more than 72 hours, if you're not lucky.

I don't have to rehash all the possible scenarios that could lead to a LARGER scale evacuation than New Orleans, suffice it to say I think we can all imagine one or two.

With this thought in mind, I've begun to piece together a network of friends in various places who would either be coming here, or I'd be going there.

We've set up a contact list for each other, we've agreed on radio communications protocols where needed, we've arranged for ways to attempt to exchange messages even if the telecommunications network is having problems. We've exchanged maps. We've hidden keys - and nothing more - to our residences at several easy-to-access but hard to find locations en-route that can only be found if you are looking for them and have the GPS coordinates of the drop site. (Locations are in UTM, so if the GPS network goes down you can still find them on the UTM gridded topo) Thanks Geocache.com for that idea.

Most importantly, we've agreed to add to our in-home supplies to accommodate the others. It's not much more, but if you had to accommodate, say, 8 more people for 2-3 months, would you be ready for them? How about water if the power is out? Got enough food? Ammo? Gas? Yeah, it's a little "LTS" for this list, but the basic idea that I have is that I need a place to "bug out" to and so do some of my urban friends. So, why not get the mutual aid thing going now, before we (hopefully never) need it?

If you agree now to hold 20 gallons of fresh & stabilized gas for someone else 250 miles to your north (or west, or east, or south - whatever), and they agree to hold 20 gallons of gas in reserve for you, that's something that's going to make your bug-out trip a bit better, isn't it?

Same if you know you can re-supply and continue moving, if needed, or stay put and have someone either expecting you or who knows where you'll be.

My Bug-Out locations are in the middle of NY State, in Michigan, West Virginia and Kentucky and Montana. I'm working on one in Arizona (we often take long West Coast trips - LA and SFO).

I'm a bug-out destination for some folks on Long Island, as well as Washington DC and New York City.

That's about all I can handle, but I hope that others take up the idea and form their own networks of mutual aid.