Bug Out Bags

No offense to you eliquid, but this is the type of absurdity I'm talking about. What exactly are you planning for? What's going to cause you to jump out of bed at 3am, wake the wife and kids, and head out for a 3 mile hike to dig up some supplies you previously buried, before you head out to live in the woods?

This is the type of thing I don't get.

No offense to you, but have you read any of the posts in the this thread? Plenty of reasons have been given already.

It would be like me saying why do you choose to not live in the USA? You have your reasons, no matter how absurd I think they would be, just like I have mine.

There is no correct answer that will justify both of us, it would be a moot point. However, if shit hit the fan I know where I am traveling and I know where my shit is.
 


B.O.B. -
Contents -
- AR 15 (upper and lower seperated in lint/dust proof rubberized bag)
- 10 30 round clips fully loaded
- .40 Pistol with 3 extra clips
- Mylar emergency blankets
- First Aid Kit
- 3 days worth of clothes (pants,shirts,socks,underwear)
- 3 pair of extra heavy socks, in case of an unexpected hike.
- Katadyn Vario Multi Flow Water Microfilter Amazon.com: Katadyn Vario Multi Flow Water Microfilter: Sports & Outdoors

- Gill Net (catch fish)
- Three MRE's
- Marine SealLine Waterproof bag
- Folding Shovel
- A tool set (basic adjustable wrenchs,pliers,screw drivers)
- Foldable laminated map of area between my city and Big Out Location
- Pocket Rocket Stove
- Knives - a K Bar and a knife for cleaning/gutting game
- Sleeping Bag -I attach it to the rear underside of bag.
- Snugpak Tent. Amazon.com: Snugpak Tent Ionosphere: Sports & Outdoors

- Dual-Band 136-174/400-480 MHz FM Ham Two-way Radio
- Paracord (I usually have a 1000 ft roll on hand, so I can cut and pack as much as I need).
- Tarps (2 Multicam Pattern)

Where are the baby wipes? If your rucking all that weight, you should have some foot powder as well.
 
Why not just get a few rolls of gold rounds...(un-struck coins). Should there ever be a society that does develop jewelry / their conductive abilities will likely make them extremely valuable...but im just prospectin there. If you happen to use your bug out bag for something other than a complete apocalypse gold is lighter than cash (by a lot) meaning you can carry more money and its easy to hide, plus at any gold exchange anywhere you can trade rounds for cash.
 
If anyone was obsessed with survival odds to point of placing it above all else, then a good strategy might be to move to a place like Vermont where they have gone entire years with no or few homicides. Or maybe find a small town in Utah where most of the people go to church, join that church, and then in theory things would have to get really bad before your fellow Mormons thought about killing you for food.

I take all Hurricane warnings seriously and I make sure my family is safe and evacuated and then I return to make sure my property is kept safe. Our house is 130 years old so I don't think it is going anywhere and it is elevated 15 feet from street level so I am safe from most flooding. If not, I have a boat out back if I need it.

I love my city and can't see myself living anywhere else at this point in my life. But any city would pose the same concerns in a disaster scenario. Don't make assumptions while reading between the lines that my comments and concerns are reserved for anyone of a particular racial or socio-economic make up. My concerns, experiences and comments are all encompassing of HUMANS in general.There are just as many assholes in the Burbs that will expect hand outs when the SHTF as there are in the hood. For all intents and purposes I live in the hood currently (or an area that I am in the process of gentrifying along with some partners due to two new hospitals and a Biotech center being built here) so this is the bulk of my experience during Katrina. I also have a home in Madndeville,LA which is directly across the lake from New Orleans in a very up scale sub division full of white flighters and uppity assholes. Before Katrina I rode out a Hurricane there and everyone around me had the nerve to expect me to loan them my generator. I had no problems charging phones and batteries but to expect me to loan you my generator is beyond the pale. Some of these assholes wouldn't stop to piss on me if I were on fire (or anyone else for that matter) they turn their heads and turn up their noses at everything that doesn't personally affect them.

You and many others are missing the point: Disaster can strike ANY OF US at ANY TIME! It doesn't matter where you live. Your level of income isn't going to insulate you from the pain and dangers associated with the various scenarios that can go down during and after one of these disasters.

Maybe Shawnhag can jump in here and relay some anecdotal stories about his experience in SEAL Training and back up my experience in Ranger School: You are intentionally starved so that you get a clear handle on your own limitations/psychopath ranges during a food and water shortage and you also get a clear handle on the depths of aggression and desperateness others will stoop to pretty quickly. Some people just give up, roll over and accept that they are going to die. Others get animistic real quick and start plotting your demise and taking whatever you might have. This is human nature.You get very susceptible to group memes of violence and theft. You develop (in a group setting) allegiances and a "us against them" attitude.

When you see this behavior in an entire village (in my case in Iraq), city (New Orleans) or province it is something that sticks with you.


Non-Hurricane Example:
I have family in Kentucky and went up there to help out in that Ice Storm in 2008 and it was the same story: THOUSANDS of unprepared idiots crying and begging for help. No one stocked up on wood or heating fuel. No one had emergency back up propane heaters. In two days I think I welded together 30 55 gal wood stoves for people out of Glycerin Barrels that had small children to care for. My 86 year old Grandfather was chopping wood for people and also bringing hay to feed other peoples live stock. We shoot game all year and freeze it up there so between myself and 15 other cousins, uncles, in-laws etc we had hundreds of pounds of meat and poultry on hand. Granted, we're rednecks and like to shoot shit but we're also pragmatic about things and were raised not to expect the government to save us when things get rough. Part of this "Altruism" was to head off people coming to my families place for help. None of us wanted masses of people sizing up the compound uninvited looking for a hand out. (If they see smoke,they know you have wood for heat. If you aren't leaving your stables looking for hay they know you have some). And word spreads quick when you're giving away needed stuff to people. If you use the dissemination of information to your advantage in a situation like this you can protect your own assets (another lesson from Ranger School).

It's funny you bring up the Mormons: They wrote the Preppers Bible (pun intended) when it comes to food storage and disaster preparedness. And they live a pretty insulated existence from most of society. Meaning they are not following any Doom and Gloom marketing being shoved down everyone else's throats. They are giving us positive examples to follow but most of America laughs and snorts about how loony they are.

It's a shame that the media are now painting a picture of people that push themselves to be self sufficient and enduring of anything as being on the fringes of society when at one point this was what collectively as a society we used to strive toward. I honestly hope you and everyone else never has to endure a hardship such as what I have spoken of. But sadly - with your current attitude, if you do, you're going to be (in the words of Galacon) someones meat.
 
No offense to you, but have you read any of the posts in the this thread? Plenty of reasons have been given already.

Just reread the thread, and not a single reason has been given. Yuma504 mentioned hurricane Katrina, because he lived though it, and he seems to be the most prepared out of anyone in this thread. Other than that, not a single reason has been given.

I guess there's natural disasters, but as Yuma504 pointed out, if you're stuck in one, you're going to want to bunker down at home if at all possible. You're not going to want to bug out into the wilderness.

There's hyperinflation, but that takes more than 12 hours to kick in.

There's nuclear / EMP fallout, but that's not going to happen, and only fear-driven idiots believe that's a possibility. No country with that technology is going to employ it. The US and China aren't about to start lobbing nukes at each other anytime soon.

What else? I'm not trying to be a dick, but you guys seem to be spending $10k+ on these bug out bags, and I don't really understand why. What's going to cause you to get up and leave your home that urgently? As I've said though, definitely prepare for natural disasters though, and that's without question a smart move.

These bug out bags I still can't get my head wrapped around their usefulness though.
 
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What categories of items do you lump things into for your BOB or emergency plans?

Right now, I'm kind of thinking:

  • Medical - med kits, antibiotics, etc.
  • Food / Water - MRE's, water purification, cooking and eating utensils
  • Defense / Hunting - guns and ammo, knives, fishing equipment
  • Navigation - maps, compass
  • Shelter - tents or paracord and tree branches
Maybe "Barter" as a 6th category. Extra stuff just for that purpose.

What would you add / remove / change?
 
There's hyperinflation, but that takes more than 12 hours to kick in.


These bug out bags I still can't get my head wrapped around their usefulness though.

Most of us don't need to see the flames to know there is a fire... we smell the smoke. (The hinting of an economic collapse). Look at the way Central Banking has tanked much of the European Union. To think we aren't next is more than cavalier.... it's down right asinine.

Factor in the BRIC nations forming alliances to tank our Petro dollars and the writing is on the wall. Add in that Mexico is now selling oil to China via Gold and the yuan and the picture gets even bleaker.

Many people scoff at the conspiracy theories about Martial Law ( and that is their prerogative to do so), but I can assure you our military is preparing for it. Fort Polk here in Louisiana is a major training facility for those scenarios and the U.N. even participates. If you're in Louisiana for any length of time you will see U.N. vehicles being shipped via train all the time.

The Army has a new MOS (military occupational specialty) : Internment and Resettlement Specialist. To be stationed state side. Why is this needed?

Q: Who is going to be "Interned" and who is going to need "Resettling"?
A: Anyone stupid enough to be in a major metro area when food, fuel and water are no longer available.

Personally I find the prospect of living in a rural area should this go down more pleasant than an "Internment Camp" when the Government decides that society needs to be corralled and herded like cattle in some far off facility to save it from itself.

In an economic collapse within three days the US would reach absolute gridlock. No food, No fuel and No water... trucks and trains would stop moving, ports of entry would be closed off and violence would ensue.

Look around you (for those living in America) and notice all these young men and grown ass men who fancy themselves as "Beast's" and "Gangster's", "Real Nigga's" and live by a credo of "I takes what I's want", "Im'ma beast, me" or "Watch me go into Beast Mode and take what I want". Black, White, Asian, Latino, even Native American ... this attitude and behavior crosses all boundaries. Some are poseurs and wannabe's... but that doesn't stop them form being stupid and trying to show off for their crew. Add in the real "Real Nigga's" that are out to take advantage of situations , the peckerwoods who will "Yee-Haw" and think we can go stir up some trouble and kill us some Niggra's now.Sprinkle in the idiot tough guys (there are more than enough examples in this thread and others that broach the subject) who are going to shoot first and maybe ask questions later, the outright fearful who will shoot at everything because they are cowards and anxious...etc etc and you get a picture of what a BOB is good for and what it is used for.


In a situation like this "Bugging In" is not an option. You have to move and you have to move quickly. Maybe you'll be able to get out of Dodge in a vehicle, maybe you won't. That is why we pack our shit in a B.O.B.

This is why we buy places like this in undisclosed area's in Tennessee and/or Missouri :

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This is why we have vehicles like this in reserve, waiting for that SHTF moment to get out if we can:

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Maybe I am crazy, maybe I am overreacting, maybe I am pissing my money away preparing for an event that will never come to pass... but I want to be safe rather than sorry. I have seen those people that have found themselves in the position of "sorry" and it isn't any fun.

If it doesn't happen, well then I have some beautiful property to go camp and hunt on. And I have a hoopty to play in the mud when I want to. No harm, no foul.
 
Id suggest everyone read up on Argentina's economic collapse for a picture of a very worse case economic senario.
 
Nice! I want a place like that! Beautiful!

I found the seller on ebay (the land I was initially interested in sold). That is a great resource for land. Check out the sellers websites in addition to their ebay inventories. Good deals are out there if you hunt them down.

This is actually in Tennessee, 20 minutes south of Gatlinburg.

Initially I bought some shit land in New Mexico for next to nothing:


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Just sold it to pay off the remainder of the other property... what a relief, because the desert sucks ass! But you can buy some land that NO ONE WILL FIND YOU ON, EVER for less than $3k.
 
But how will you get to Tennessee?

FTFY

When the economy tanks , leave immediately. I am not going to wait around hoping for the best, I am not going to be an alarmist and chicken little everyone around me, I am going to quietly pack my shit and go. Down the back roads in my hoopty looking as inconspicuous as possible.

If I can't get to my property I have several other like minded friends who will be doing the same thing closer. This is why "groups" and "community" are so important. Find you a place and get in where you fit in!
 
I agree with being prepared but but the location seems hardly defensible.

I read an this account a while ago about Bosnia.

From your link:

Right now I own a steel door, but that’s just against the first wave of chaos. After that passes I will leave the city to rejoin a larger group of people, my friends and family.

That is exactly what I am doing... only I bought the land and organized the peeps to rendezvous there with or without me.

Great article though, highly recommended reading for those following this thread.
 
I think some of you may want to scrap your bug out bags, and instead take some outdoor survival classes first. Once done, take your family for a week long hike into the mountains. After that, build your bug out bag.

I don't even know much about outdoor survival, but apparently, I know more than many of you. There's been absolutely no mention of some of the essentials -- goretex clothing, wool socks, hiking boots, whistle, fishing line (MANY uses), compass, and so on. All very small, lightweight stuff that you're going to be very happy you do have if the time ever comes.

Or just other simple things like for example, these butane stoves:

Everyone needs/wants different things in their bag. Not everyone will be using it to survive indefinitely in the wilderness. Many will just be grabbing the bag and heading to a different location father away from a major city where they already have other supplies, shelter, etc.
 
I honestly hope you and everyone else never has to endure a hardship such as what I have spoken of. But sadly - with your current attitude, if you do, you're going to be (in the words of Galacon) someones meat.

What attitude? I made no comments about how much or little anyone should prep and made no comments about the people who do or don't.

If you don't get offended by people suggesting that owning extra bags of rice can tilt survival odds in one's favor, then you shouldn't get offended by anything I wrote either. It's not like the idea of getting away from high concentrations of people is an unheard of prepper strategy.

WOLVERINES!