I watched the Accountant movie starring Ben Affleck the other idea. In the movie, he has a safe house which is a trailer truck that has all the important stuff for his use in case of an emergency.

I was thinking maybe we all should have a safe house for the preparedness. One of my friends recently constructed a mini storage steel building for rentals. People usually store the equipment and tools, and vehicles.

After seeing the movie, I though I should rent a space there. I can use it as the preparedness storage. What do you guys think?

The question is, prepare for what?

+1 to Tjin's pertinent question....

Really, keeping your items organized and accessible is probably rather important. Off site storage might be good or it might be bad, depending upon circumstances. Would you want first aid materials stored off site?

For that matter, I am not so sure one can make a rigid distinction between emergency supplies and ordinary "stuff." My pantry is well stocked (has been that way for years) and could sustain me and my family for at least a month without a trip to the grocery store. It's just food, after all.

It's a movie -- "The Accountant". I have a storage unit but it contains nothing needing ready/quick access. However, I'm not a math savant accountant cooking the books for major crime organizations or un-cooking the books for legitimate hi-tech clients. AFAIK the Treasury Department isn't on my case Were I in "The Accountant's" line of work my requirements might be way different.

Might be better to swap space with a friend - someone x miles away who can backup your stuff. ( many of my local Ustoreits are in sketchy or low lying areas...)

Depends on what you're stobors are. Residential fires, living in a high crime area, and earthquakes are reasons to store off site. Floods, maybe. Anything requiring large scale evacuation or bugging in, are going to be hampered by having your gear off site.

Liea55... you might get something from this that could help you

http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/p/map.html

if you are thinking about food storage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOLuIApyNPc

Thank you LesSnyder.

In my personal situation I'm likely only to leave in two situations:

If it's a personal emergency like a house fire, I can reasonably expect to land somewhere safe and sound pretty quickly. Getting everyone out of the house safely is my number one priority in this scenario. This is the most likely event and the easiest to prepare for, at least in my mind.

Where my mind can start exploding at the possibilities of a serious bug-out, is from some large-scale disaster that makes staying here dangerous. Something like a train derailment, industrial accident, or a problem at the nuke plant are the top three possibilities where I live. This is going to involve a whole lot of people and a potentially a much larger geographical area. This makes contingency planning much harder. (I.e. We live right between two nuke plants, one to the East of us and one to the West. Which one goes?)

Questions like this always get my wheels turning with possible scenarios: Why are you bugging-out? Where are you bugging out to? How do you expect to get to you bug-out location?

Our family has decided that our best strategy is to keep all our supplies at home and store them in such a way that we can easily grab, pack and run if we needed to. Thanks to this thread I'm currently re-working our family bug-out supplies. (More details in the "What did you do today to prepare?" thread here

The reasons we have decided against an off-site storage unit basically come down to three things: cost, putting a priority on bugging-in, and not being able to decide where to store stuff. We face considerable threats from all four cardinal directions and it would be risky to gamble on one. It would really suck if the place our stuff was stashed, or the route to get there, was in the danger zone.

Our bug-out destinations are in varied directions, all with family or family property. So, instead of a rental unit, we're working with those family members to make sure they or the property is well-prepared. It would really suck to get there and it be untenable.

Thanks for a great discussion starter Liea55!

Always an interesting problem - stay or go? Realistically, one of the best resources is a good store of financial resources, both cash and credit (I am assuming realistic disasters, like a nuke meltdown, not the end of the world stuff). in any event, actual events are likely to disrupt carefully laid plans. Here's a real world example.

Some years ago we were disembarking people and cargo at Anacapa Island (SoCal). All of a sudden, the boat gave five toots on the horn (distress signal). He had just been told that a rocket had exploded on the launch pad at Vandenberg AFB (65 miles west), spewing large quantities of bad stuff into the air, and instructions were to evacuate everyone from the island immediately. We did so, and then our captain asked HQ in all seriousness, "Should we go out to sea or return to the mainland (presumably to die with everyone else). We returned to a relatively unpolluted mainland and lived.

On San Miguel Island, much closer to Vandenburg (30 miles) we had about four people on duty. They were instructed to retreat to the ranger station, seal up all openings with duct tape and plastic, and wait for evacuation. A plane was sent and they were evacuated. I don't know if SCBA was involved - it was about one-half mile walk from cabin to airstrip, but they were examined periodically for the next several months.

So there you have bug in and bug out in the same event. Just be sure you have duct tape and your Swiss Army knife handy at all times......

It could be a total roll of the dice, couldn't it, hikermor?

I read this on another site the other day:

DW and I plan on making a mock bugout next month in the camper w/DD1 (handicapped) for 3 days. We're taking DD1's equipment as well as everything needed for 3 days of boondocking. We will not be bring and PCA (Personal Care Attendant) to help with DD1.

The big challenges will be shuffling DD1's equipment and maintaing her daily self maintenance routine. This will prep us for taking longer trips so DD1 can come with us and see some of the great sites to see in this country.