Many of the folks I know have an abiding belief in survival; some of them become survivalists and center their lives around it, which has always struck me as kinda weird. But I find that I can often learn useful things from them, even if we may disagree about how central those useful things ought to be in one’s life. Put those useful things into a bag and have it at hand in case you need to ‘head for the hills’, and you have a “Bug Out Kit”.
There’s an interesting discussion to have about apocalyptic fantasies, and our bizarre attachment to them. I mentioned some of the issues over in a post on Armed Liberal [note: site is down]. It’s almost time for a longer discussion on it.
But today, let’s be practical and discuss what such a kit might consist of.
First, you’ve got to discuss purpose.
The hardier among us assume that they will be taking to the field as a guerilla army defending against the invading Red forces, or the newly oppressive U.S. government under President H. Clinton. They envision living on venison jerky and fresh-caught fish and carrying enough weapons to put together a light infantry platoon.
On the other extreme, some folks would just like to be able to get home in the event their car breaks down on the other side of town.
I’m somewhere in between. I live in Southern California, where we live on borrowed time – the earthquakes, riots, floods, or fires compete for the ‘Disaster of the Decade’ pageant, which we hold in Pasadena every Leap Year Day.
For me, it’s not a “Bug Out Kit”, it’s a “Get Home Kit”. It’s not unreasonable to assume that my SO or I may have to cover fifty miles to get home, and that having gotten home, we may be without water, power, or gas for several days to a week until the grown-ups can get their act together and take care of us.
And to this I’ll add the new layer of risk posed by a meaningful terrorist attack.
So the kits break into two parts: What we try and have with us, and what we have at home.
What we have with us is primarily designed to get us home. Because I have children, unless I can be convinced that my entire neighborhood is a giant smoking crater, or communicate with someone who has my children and is getting them somewhere safe, I’m heading home. End of subject.
This is a small, cheap day pack that we can leave in the car or at the office.
It contains:
Light hiking boots (hell, we own them, and why leave them in the closet where they just take up space?)
Socks (I’m likely to be wearing dress socks, and TG is likely to be wearing hose)
Pants and a sweatshirt
A poncho
Five or six Power Bars
Five or six GU Gel packs (food you squeeze)
Two bottles of water, and some water purification tablets
Two bandanas
A Leatherman multi-tool
A decent knife (Spyderco Delicia)
50′ of 4mm perlon cord
A locking carabiner
More first-aid stuff (pretty much what I carry in my motorcycle suit):
– 2 battle dressings
– 2 – 4 x 4 gauze pads
– 1 CPR shield
– 2 pairs nitrile gloves
– vial with core prescriptions
– bottle of aspirin
– Imodium
A spare pair of prescription glasses for each of us (what else do you do with old glasses?)
Two black heavy-duty trash bags
Tarp with eyelets in the corners
4 – 6″ zip ties
Scorpion Streamlight
2 spare lithium batteries
– and a partridge in a pear tree.
Basically, with this kit, I could – comfortably – cover 20 – 30 miles in a day on foot in pretty much any weather condition I’m likely to face here in SoCal, bivvy for the night, and have enough stuff to do it again another day.
We already owned everything in the kits, except the backpacks, leatherman, knife, carabiner, flashlight, and perlon cord. Total investment, maybe $150 each if you buy a good multi-tool.
At home, we have:
Water (5 extra 5 ga Sparkletts distilled water bottles; we use and rotate them when we change the water in the fish tank)
Food (a 20 ga ‘tupperware’ container full of canned and dried food, plus camping cooking gear, the car camping propane stove and a couple of propane cylinders)
First Aid (the big kit described here)
Tools (a Sears roller cabinet full)
A wonderbar (pry bar) in the bedroom closet, in case we have to pry open jammed doors
A shutoff wrench that fits the city water valve
A crescent wrench swedged onto a wire loop at the gas meter
If I were to add antiterrorism to the kit, I’d consider adding:
Potassium iodide (antiradiation)
Some high-end respirators (not gas masks, but the ones with fine carbon filters)
Four or five sheets of Visqueen (disposable painter’s tarp)
Five or ten rolls of duct tape
Some starter packs of a broad-spectrum antibiotic
A couple of Tyvek (disposable) overalls
I’m thinking about it…
JK Note: Don’t miss his Super First Aid Kit, either.
Blaster’s Blog also *has one of these*. As expected, yours is more complete.
Once again, you have answered a question I was busily trying to figure out on my own. Thanks! I’ll get right on it.
As a bit of silliness: during lunch at work yesterday, I hit the grocery store for some more emergency food with a friend of mine, and just brought it back into the office with me, since we took her car. Later that afternoon, my developer comes into the office, sees the grocery bags, and asks what I’m doing. I reply “indulging some of my paranoia,” and this causes him to launch into a lengthy debate with me over wether or not making any sort of preparations is even worth it. He kept saying, “but what good would this do you?” I kept trying to explain that the preparations I was taking would be good, even if we weren’t living under threat of a terrorist attack…
Finally I realize that he thinks I’m just keeping random canned goods in my office, not that I’ve got groceries I’m taking home…
At least some Californians are reasonably well prepared for earthquake ‘inconveniences’, though from conversations I’ve had, I’m on the more-prepared end. But rather than ‘bug-out’ kits, those here are more ‘get-home’ and ‘ride-it-out’ kits. I’ve got no complaint about the idea of ‘bug-out’ but I have to ask “Where do you plan to go?”
My family had part of this discussion yesterday; I think leaving town (i.e. farther than ‘reasonable walking distance home’) with less than half a tank of gas is bad planning. I can’t get my wife and daughter to internalize this one, so sometimes we’re late to places while they humor me, with some to much eye-rolling. I love them anyway.
So, um, after I’ve hermetically sealed my 3/4-bath with sheets and duct-tape, just how long can my family of four keep breathing the same air? After an “initial scare” how many families will be found suffocated in their bathrooms?
…and with a budget of $400 billion, I’d think the feds could either hand out plastic sheets and duct tape OR if my line of nat’l defense is plastic sheets and duct tape, I WANT MY MONEY BACK!
–prepared for earthquakes and other disasters in Ventura County, CA
John, I agree. I’m hard-pressed to imagine where I would go that offers more than my home neighborhood; I live across the street from a block-square park, where we could camp if our house was unlivable; I have a lot of assets in the house which would be useful to have; and most of all, I know my neighbors pretty well, and am comfortable that we would do a good job of supporting each other in the event of a crisis.
Then again. I don;t live next door to a power plant, a refinery, or some other likely target of massive damage.
So I’m definitely in the “go home and stay there” camp.
A.L.
I always carry a similar bag in my truck along with a sleeping bag and some winter gear appropriate for living in the mountains of New Mexico. One thing I also carry is a (gasp) handgun and several extra magazines. I do not pin my hopes on calm, cool and collected populace in times of attack and or natural disaster.
Ditty-bopping along home warm and with supplies while the unprepared panic is more frightning than an attack. But then again in NM it is legal to carry a firearm in your car and openly while wlaking.
Kent – the issue of weapons is a complicated one; for myself, I’m seldom someplace without some kind of weapon at hand (subject to the appropriate local laws, of course).
But it’s been my experience in living through a few earthquakes and lightweight disasters here in the Bay Area and Los Angeles that people are almost without exception cooperative and mututally supportive. The riots here were obviously the huge exception, but I drove through the fringes of them to pick up my wife at her office without incident (Reginald Denny was less fortunate).
I’m also a little concerned about people making the decision to buy a weapon out of a kind of knee-jerk anxiety rather than as a thoughtful decision.
I ought to do a post on this…
A.L.
Why don’t you just put it all in one or more waterproof containers and cache them in an easily locatable place in nearby mountains? Then you just drive there, retrieve them, and sleep lightly.
If you are concerned that bears will get into the containers, seal the stuff in one or more large bearproof cylinders with a screw-on lid, bury them, and put heavy rocks over them. Don’t forget the map of where you stored them. Then you only need to take water and perishables.
You’ll need a small AM Radio – with spare batteries. Spare battery pack for cell phone (cell phones tend to come online faster in disasters). And a 2 meter ham handheld if licensed.
> A wonderbar (pry bar) in the bedroom closet, in case we have to pry open jammed doors
Does said bedroom or closet have doors that might be jammed?
You might also want TWO of the FRS radios. They come in both license-required and no-license variations, the latter is typically less than $25 and the former occasionally so. (There’s a range/power difference and some reserved frequencies for the former.) They’re amazingly popular, so other folks in whatever ad hoc group you end up in are likely to have them as well, as are neighboring groups.
They don’t have the range of 2 Meter ham, but two-way/no infrastructure communication that you have is better than anything you don’t have.
Oh, and more batteries.
Your estimate on how many miles/day you can cover is optimistic, at best. Plan for the worst case scenario – if their is civil unrest/severe disaster you may be lucky to make 5 miles/day…
You might want to consider the following adds:
– more food/water to support a longer trip.
– a small container of good vitamins – this could keep you going for a while as you have water.
– moleskin – deterioration of your feet is a primary factor in slowing or stopping you.
– steristrips/butterfly – need stitches? You won’t sew yourself up like in the movies – use these instead. They are small, too.
– a small screwdriver, especially if you wear glasses. Losing a screw could ruin your day if you wear a strong prescription.
– colored lenses for your flashlight – red is good at night if you want to remain unobtrusive and it doesn’t ruin your night vision.
– extra cash
– Lip balm – hey, it get’s rough out there.
– A pair of police-type gloves, such as Hatch gloves to help scale walls, climb trees, move through ravines/brush/messed up buildings.
– Something to start a fire, such as a nice weatherproof lighter.
– 50′ length of 2″ tubing – you can use that to climb, but you’ll kill yourself using paracord(but paracord is your friend).
– a small candle – handy at night or useful to help start a fire.
– trade the partridge/pear tree for a Glock 23 or Beretta Cougar…get the guy to throw in extra mags and ammo while you’re at it.
All items can be carried in a nice, unassuming backpack.
Just my humble opinion folks…
Once ya put a Kit together, you’ll never know if you really have what ya need unless ya try it. I highly recommend doing a trial of what ya have. Your next 3 day weekend take off with your Kit and go to where your Safe Place is. Can ya make it? Is it just too far away? What did you need more of? What did ya not use? And make your trial ‘real’, start at the most inconvenient place your likely to be caught at if an Event occurs (most likely work). Starting at your neighbor’s house and going home probably is not a true test of your equipment or you. Now start modifying that Kit to fit what ya need.