Mr. Mason
Inactive
I just posted this on another forum in response to a thread on whether to 'head for the hills' or stay put when TSHTF. Here's my take on this.
Say you are a city dweller, you buy a cabin out in the middle of nowhere as your 'bug out' location.
Now unless you are retired you'll have to stay in the city until you decide to bug out.
And herein lies the problems...
(1) If you try and pre-stock your bug out, there's a good chance it will be looted before you get there.
(2) If you don't pre-stock it, and try to take stocks with you when you go there, you'll be limited in how much you can take and you may get looted on the way there.
(3) You may not get there period. EMP blast can take out all vehicles leaving you standed. This is VERY likely going to be the case in any SHTF scenero.
(4) Say you do get to you bugout and you do somehow have stocks of food and water to survive for say 6 months. Rural areas are no longer the bastion of law abiding god fearing people. You will be facing unemployeed meth addicted rednecks. They will find you and unless you plan on having enough armed men to post guards 24/7. Other wise, they will just wait until you are asleep and then light your cabin on fire. Personally, I would rather take my chances with a dozen gangbangers trying to loot a subdivison that is my TURF than a couple hillbillies out in the middle of THEIR turf.
(5) Let's assume by some miracle you get you and your family to your bugout, you have food and water, and the hillbillies don't kill you and take everything you have. In 6 months you'll be out of food. You're thinking you will be able to grow enough food to feed your family. But you're not a farmer. Ever heard of the Irish potato famine? Those people knew how to farm and they still died by the millions. Farming is risky business. One failed crop and you'll die.
Maybe you can hunt, ok... but again, who's going to be watching the cabin while you are out hunting?
So unless your bugout consists of maybe 6 families living in a single rural compound, a city dweller taking his family out into the middle of nowhere is just not a good option.
Now let's look at the other extreme. You live in an apartment in downtown NY City, LA, or Atlanta. Well, you are probably toast. In a nuclear exchange, you'll be vaporized. At least you can take comfort in the fact that it will probably be painless. That's likely going to be the fate of 1/3 the country in the major urban population centers.
Another problem spot will be the areas of the country where cities have been put into what is actually deserts. If you live where water has to be pumped in from a hundred miles away, you are going to be in trouble.
OK... but what about those of us who don't live downtown in a major city and who live in areas where it rains every week or two and water can easily be collected from runoff from roof gutters? Many of us live on the outskirts of cities in suburbs. Even if your city was hit by a nuclear blast, if you are 10-15miles outside the city you are likely to survive, especially if you are not on the side of the city where the prevailing winds might blow fallout from the city towards you.
In this case, you probably will be better off hunkering down where you are than trying to take your family out into the middle of nowhere. Here's why:
(1) You probably will be able to eventually hook up some of your neighboors to defend your homes.
(2) In 6 months, 2/3 of the USA will be dead once the lights go out from drinking bad water and disease. Those who do survive will find 2/3 of homes empty. These can be scavenged for canned food, etc. and thousands of abandoned vehicles from which fuel can be scavenged for cooking.
(3) There's a good chance you can make plans with another family or relatives who live nearby to make a stand in a single location. This will improve all you your chances significantly.
(4) Empty abandoned homes in the suburbs can be stripped for wood for repairs on survivors homes, the bricks in abandoned homes can be used for
lining wells, etc. and the land where abandoned homes once stood can be then used for gardens.
(5) You won't have as much problem with gangbangers in the inner city coming out to loot the suburbs 10-15 miles out of the cities as you think.
For starters, if the cities are nuked, they will all be dead. If the cities are not nuked, bad water and disease will decimate those left. I don't see too many gangbangers walking 15 miles to try and loot the suburbs leaving their inner city 'turf' and their women to the mercy of rival gangbangers. Those that do make it out that far will run into bands of well armed upper middle class survivors in the suburbs. They will be facing an army of suburbanites consisting of doctor's, engineers, computer programmers, and the like. In other words, intellgent people that will very quickly figure out that they need to organize for self defense, man checkpoints at entrances into subdivisons, etc.
Say you are a city dweller, you buy a cabin out in the middle of nowhere as your 'bug out' location.
Now unless you are retired you'll have to stay in the city until you decide to bug out.
And herein lies the problems...
(1) If you try and pre-stock your bug out, there's a good chance it will be looted before you get there.
(2) If you don't pre-stock it, and try to take stocks with you when you go there, you'll be limited in how much you can take and you may get looted on the way there.
(3) You may not get there period. EMP blast can take out all vehicles leaving you standed. This is VERY likely going to be the case in any SHTF scenero.
(4) Say you do get to you bugout and you do somehow have stocks of food and water to survive for say 6 months. Rural areas are no longer the bastion of law abiding god fearing people. You will be facing unemployeed meth addicted rednecks. They will find you and unless you plan on having enough armed men to post guards 24/7. Other wise, they will just wait until you are asleep and then light your cabin on fire. Personally, I would rather take my chances with a dozen gangbangers trying to loot a subdivison that is my TURF than a couple hillbillies out in the middle of THEIR turf.
(5) Let's assume by some miracle you get you and your family to your bugout, you have food and water, and the hillbillies don't kill you and take everything you have. In 6 months you'll be out of food. You're thinking you will be able to grow enough food to feed your family. But you're not a farmer. Ever heard of the Irish potato famine? Those people knew how to farm and they still died by the millions. Farming is risky business. One failed crop and you'll die.
Maybe you can hunt, ok... but again, who's going to be watching the cabin while you are out hunting?
So unless your bugout consists of maybe 6 families living in a single rural compound, a city dweller taking his family out into the middle of nowhere is just not a good option.
Now let's look at the other extreme. You live in an apartment in downtown NY City, LA, or Atlanta. Well, you are probably toast. In a nuclear exchange, you'll be vaporized. At least you can take comfort in the fact that it will probably be painless. That's likely going to be the fate of 1/3 the country in the major urban population centers.
Another problem spot will be the areas of the country where cities have been put into what is actually deserts. If you live where water has to be pumped in from a hundred miles away, you are going to be in trouble.
OK... but what about those of us who don't live downtown in a major city and who live in areas where it rains every week or two and water can easily be collected from runoff from roof gutters? Many of us live on the outskirts of cities in suburbs. Even if your city was hit by a nuclear blast, if you are 10-15miles outside the city you are likely to survive, especially if you are not on the side of the city where the prevailing winds might blow fallout from the city towards you.
In this case, you probably will be better off hunkering down where you are than trying to take your family out into the middle of nowhere. Here's why:
(1) You probably will be able to eventually hook up some of your neighboors to defend your homes.
(2) In 6 months, 2/3 of the USA will be dead once the lights go out from drinking bad water and disease. Those who do survive will find 2/3 of homes empty. These can be scavenged for canned food, etc. and thousands of abandoned vehicles from which fuel can be scavenged for cooking.
(3) There's a good chance you can make plans with another family or relatives who live nearby to make a stand in a single location. This will improve all you your chances significantly.
(4) Empty abandoned homes in the suburbs can be stripped for wood for repairs on survivors homes, the bricks in abandoned homes can be used for
lining wells, etc. and the land where abandoned homes once stood can be then used for gardens.
(5) You won't have as much problem with gangbangers in the inner city coming out to loot the suburbs 10-15 miles out of the cities as you think.
For starters, if the cities are nuked, they will all be dead. If the cities are not nuked, bad water and disease will decimate those left. I don't see too many gangbangers walking 15 miles to try and loot the suburbs leaving their inner city 'turf' and their women to the mercy of rival gangbangers. Those that do make it out that far will run into bands of well armed upper middle class survivors in the suburbs. They will be facing an army of suburbanites consisting of doctor's, engineers, computer programmers, and the like. In other words, intellgent people that will very quickly figure out that they need to organize for self defense, man checkpoints at entrances into subdivisons, etc.
