Hello, All --<br><br> Urban survival is an interesting thread. So much depends on the scenario, and whether you can leave or must stay put. You may have reasons to stay close to home -- a home, a business, relatives, or whatever. Or you may have no choice in the matter. <br><br>I had to stay put. Forgive the length, but I hope it will be of interest.<br><br> I live in the US Virgin Islands, and experienced Hurricane Hugo in 1989. 214 mph + winds created what one insurance adjuster told me was "the worst devastation he'd ever seen on US soil." <br><br> My wife and I survived (biting our nails) in a reinforced concrete condo, even though the walls hummed like guitar strings. We kept the roof, lost all the glass and sliding doors -- instant "living room stew." After the storm, there wasn't a residential roof in sight; trees were stripped and lying all over the roads, even the grass was stripped off the earth. Needless to say, it posed some interesting survival challenges. Perhaps some will be instructive to others. I learned quite a bit.<br><br> All power and phone lines down -- no contact with friends and family. Roads blocked, airport closed. Radio and TV stations off the air due to antenna loss. Only (erroneous) AM radio news from far away. Local newspaper -- down for weeks. Cops, firemen, doctors and nurses, all dealing with their own personal problems at home. Groceries and gas stations closed for days. Help far away. Anarchy for most of a week. Looters, unfortunately.<br><br> A few lessons learned (in random order):<br>--No power means no lights, including streetlights (plenty of flashlights and batteries; wish we'd had long lasting LED's then.) A Photon in your pocket's good; a better light is needed for general use. I now like the Lightwave 2000 LED for non-pocket carry. I have several, and a box of AA alkalines.<br>--No gas stations operating unless they have generators (Keep your car full!) It's a madhouse at stations open on generator power, what with pedestrians carrying gas cans, cars lined up for fill ups. A spare jerry can is handy.<br>--If you have a tarp and rope, you can make a damaged dwelling habitable. But you have to have water (we use cisterns here in every house) and either a bucket or a backup generator to pump it out. Obviously heat may be needed (fortunately not here!) but I have no advice there.<br>--Ditto cooking; a gas stove is good, but you need a generator for electric. A camping stove makes good backup. Perishables are ruined in a day or two without emergency power for the fridge/freezer.<br>--Laundry (if you have the water) means a bucket. And you have plenty of yucky, dirty stuff, including rugs, curtains, and many, many towels. Forget the underwear and socks unless it's cold. Dirty clothes are just fine for doing more cleanup work the next day, and the day after that ad nauseum. Gardening can showers take only a pint or two of water.<br>--If you're going to get a generator, don't fool around with the $200 Coleman/Dayton at Kmart; repairmen are hard to find after a disaster, and generators only break when you're using them constantly. Spend the money for a quality Onan, Honda, Yamaha, etc. 4-6 KW will run the essentials (other than heat/AC). Electric start is good, and can recharge the battery while running. Keep spare plugs and filters. (And be sure to drain the carb/run dry when you store it -- carburetor gasoline residue is the main reason they won't start.) If you're really serious, and have the budget, get a permanently installed diesel (mine's an 11.5 KW Onan.) <br>--Corollary to above: if you're going to have a generator of any kind, spend a couple hundred bucks and install a manual transfer switch by the electrical panel. That shuts off the utility and connects your house to generator power (even if you can't run everything at once off a portable). If you don't use the isolator switch, you risk electrocuting utility repairmen down the street. If you don't power the house circuitry, you'll run out of extension cords and trip over the ones you have.<br>--First trip out, I tried to drive to my business to see if it was still there. Damaged, but standing, fortunately. Unfortunately, I had TWO flat tires due to extensive debris. Lesson: Make sure you carry at least two cans of "fix a flat" in your trunk. Even better, get a $5 tire plug kit and an air canister and learn how to fix 'em yourself.<br>--Corollary to above; 20-30% of cars were not usable due to damage or blockage. Do you have access to another?<br>--While pushing the car through mud going around a downed tree, I stepped right out of my shoe and onto sharp metal. Lesson: if medical care is remote for a while, keep good supplies, and a kit in the car. An infection can put you out of action, and there's plenty of opportunity for cuts and wounds after any disaster.<br>--Sadly, firearms. My wife and I both wore sidearms for a week. When I got to my place of business, I was able to rout the looters without having to shoot anyone. The NRA is right -- showing a gun is usually threat enough. Racking a pistol or shotgun slide is understood from movies as the universal command to halt what you're doing. I became the night security guard at my business, since there were no lights, cops, alarm companies, etc. It gets tiring doing security detail after all day cleanup efforts.<br>--Cash; who takes credit cards when the authorization phone lines are down? What ATM's work then either? Keep a few hundred bucks in small bills. Small gold coins would have a place, too, although I didn't need mine.<br>--Sharing: neighbors banded together to help each other. If you have neighbors, you'll need each other. For several days we had group cookouts to use frozen meat that was going to go bad. Then a food broker dropped off several cases of filet mignons because his freezer was down, too. Keep an extra propane cylinder for your gas grill. We cooked exclusively on ours for weeks. A side burner is nice to have for boiling.<br><br> I could go on and on about the experience: it took a week for airlifted Guardsmen and Marshals to restore order; 60 days for full utility power to be restored; ten weeks on phone service (other than cellular, which is quicker and easier to repair. Own a cell phone.). Admittedly an island location slows repair efforts, but I hear it was still a huge problem in Charleston SC, with far less destruction.<br><br> You DO adjust to changed circumstances, though. I was peeing in the dark for weeks after the power came back on because I'd quit hitting the switch after the first week of outage. It was strange hearing bird calls instead of generator noise. The first restaurant to open had a sign out front: "Today's special: Food!" Ice was something we hadn't seen in weeks until a hotel gave us a cooler full.<br><br> As discussed elsewhere, I'm attuned to a lot of these issues now. I have EDC kits, off road kits, several different medical kits, etc. But if you're going to have to stay put in a non-wilderness scenario, it's a different game. You probably won't need the snares and fish hooks and compass, but you will need tarps, rope, batteries, food and water. A firearm added peace of mind for me. <br><br> And, obviously, s*** happens often without warning. The useful exercise is to picture the above scenario where almost all the infrastructure of civilization disappears. What have you done to prepare for that?<br><br> It does happen in real life. Hopefully it won't happen to you -- but, hey; then why are we all part of this forum?<br><br> Regards -- Karl<br>