Two items besides a very “toppy looking” market on the agenda today.
One has to do with the critical nature of having the right partner if TSHTF. While the other is an update for a long-time friend who is updating his bug-out strategies.
So, with Big Winter (*where’d that “climate hype” go?) bearing down, we boil some bean and get after it…
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Some time ago, we decided that bugging out was probably a very bad idea — for us. Maybe for you, is different.
Many reasons. Just one: I saw a well-developed and “in-force” plan back on September 11th, 2001 for how our state, Connecticut, would shut off access and egress to the interstates. I-95 and I-84 run essentially from border to border, east to west. It takes surprisingly few National Guard field team detachments with surprisingly few troops to shut off the entrances and exits. I was working auxiliary communications for our ham groups, and we had been told to expect a huge exodus from NYC of many panicked people with no resources and no skills.
It didn’t happen. There were almost no injuries, and the death total was below what was thought possible, worst case. We were looking at 50,000 to 75,000 injured, and an unknown but extremely large number of evacuees and panic-driven individual refugees spreading out in chaos into New jersey, and into Connecticut in the very early minutes and hours after the first tower fell. As I said, it never happened — but for a time there, we were convinced we were about to be over-run.
Focuses the mind wonderfully.
We realized how bad joining that lemming-flow would be. Itself, it would be a death sentence. Stuck, jammed up on the road, surrounded by…. well…. just imagine how that would go.
The commuter railroads had (have) a marvelous plan for a titanic “unrolling” evacuation, where town-by-town injured and refugees would saturate nearest-in operable facilities — totally — before sending all the victims to the very next town on the line, and then fully saturating facilities there before staging into the next town. And so on.
The idea was (and I presume is) to reduce the chances of having 400 shelters each with 10 people in them — but to fully load up one locale, and then spill to the next in turn. This reduces the number of emergency workers (and cops) to staff each town to the max needed per capita. Efficient. Evacuating by train is fast, dense, hard to interfere with, and it leaves the evacuees without any ground transportation — which is deliberate, to “fix” them into place.
When the balloon goes up, the vast majority of “Normalcy Bias” people will stay at home until it’s obviously untenable — and then they’ll go a-roaming with no plan, and no resources.
Clearly understand this Cold Fact. The authorities are NOT there to HELP you. They are there to MANAGE and CONTROL you. Know your place.
Chances are, if you’re many miles from your fortified mountain cabin, you’ll never actually arrive — you’ll be Road Kill. Unless you bug out FIRST. And who has the judgment to get that right every time Something Wicked This Way Comes.
We figure on staying here, unless it’s an accurately predicted asteroid strike. For that, we’ll move out of the way — but not for much else.
You bets your ass, and you takes your chances. My advice is to think it through now, while the pleasant sun is shining, and not to join the panicked, brainless lemming drive to the unknown.
You do what you want.
Great post. I’d suggest watching “Train to Busan” for a Korean version of just this! It’s a fast zombie movie, but it conveys just what you said here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERlPxm6aBvw
Living in your paradise makes the most sense – especially if it’s somewhat remote. Having a fallback position from there that you can get to without interference is even better.
For George: You and Elaine mean much more to most of us that the entire subscription! You did the right thing on Wednesday.
The recently-released movie “Greenland” explores the incoming asteroid ELE scenario and all the fun THAT causes. Just watched it; watch-worthy.
“We figure on staying here, unless it’s an accurately predicted asteroid strike. For that, we’ll move out of the way — but not for much else.”
I am with you WH… decades ago I had access to the plans made and the estimated strike zones.. etc.
During my life I’ve had several times where we have struggled and do without.
People probably don’t get why I have the tools I have..but my plan was to survive in place and I have learned how to make the things that make life bearable.. those that think they will travel to a new location are just kidding themselves.. I do have friend that lives next door to a communications bunker designed to hold a small city. If I absolutely had to.. that’s about a tree week walk..
Other than that I know and trust the people around me..when I helped design our communities emergency plan..it was designed to survive as a community.. know the hobbies the skills of those around..
Bugging out is a very risky proposition. If there is a an event(s) that necessitates bugging out it will most likely cause so much social chaos that to get to your destination you would need 3-4 up-armored Humvee’s with with a fuel truck and enough shooters to man everything. If you finally get there your retreat may be taken over by locals and you have to fight to get it back. And if it is a proper retreat that will be difficult. And even it you get there and it’s not occupied the locals will probably regard you as an interloper and you may be under siege.
If you are going to relocate do it now and establish community connections before it is too late. Normalcy bias means most will wait too long before bugging out. Timing is a life or death matter and most aren’t good at it.
James Johnson, ex-nuke in west-central Kentucky ( I bugged out 10 years ago and am glad I did) from the Peoples Republic of Maryland
If there was an event…
WE WOULD NOT BE WARNED.. to eliminate chaos and panic .
So it really would be after the fact oh shizt what just happened thing.
I use to watch the show renovation nation…along the way names I was familiar with began to show up..so I started to pay attention at where these people worked ..and what they were doing.
Respects to you .J.J, I want to contribute to this vein of thought and am tagging onto your comment. Someone single or with family wanting to “bugout” during or after any type of crisis is putting his and families wellbeing at severe risk.
Can it be done safely, maybe but at great cost in supplies and transportation. As most here have said you should be implementing plans now to be at that new location ASAP..i.e. NOW.
As our poster “LooB”and “J.J.” say; where ever your location is, a developed community of like-minded versatily (sp) skilled persons is a must.
Another point if I may; comments here are speaking to the larger requirements to this move. There a so many smaller items one should consider.
Concealed Carry permit and weapon.
Currency: FRN’s, Fractional gold coins,
A Load Carry Vest “survival vest”,
Communication: Sat phone.
Whether you shelter in place or bugout one should be making plans to survive and thrive at their location using everyone’s suggestions here as a starting point.
Thank you J.J.
BE WELL all who pass this way.
{mm}
Thanks stan.. If our sewer hadn’t interrupted this past couple of weeks i totally plan on getting a radio setup
The Great Plains Blizzards of the 1870s were probably worse than what we’re experiencing now. Here it’s just deep freezes and some precipitation that make travel hazardous but tomorrow with winds in the 20mph range and 3″+ of snow will begin to mirror those times. We’re, no doubt, going to lose some livestock this weekend. The cows will come up for feed but the goats aren’t about to leave their draws and windbreaks. Wouldn’t surprise me if the goats and coyotes were using each other for blankets. Tomorrow and Monday are going to be the worst of it.
Traveling a distance well beyond typical vehicle ranges carrying your own fuel is precarious. Getting out ahead of the crowd will probably make the difference between success and failure – much like timing the coming market collapse. Something like a school bus or RV that you can hollow out and put a tote or similar large fuel tank in some area lined on all sides by Kevlar or similar armor may get you a long way down the road but I sure would hate to have to change a tire on one of those. Your doctor friend being well-off should be able to put something pretty impressive together. Choosing a design or model that is somewhat inconspicuous would be challenging, though. You’re not going to get through throngs of people who are on foot so the possibility of down river travel to Southern regions might be something to consider as an addition to or alternative, too. So, too, would be traveling with a group of trusted friends.
“The Great Plains Blizzards of the 1870s were probably worse than what we’re experiencing now”
There use to be a photo of me standing on top of a telephone pole…lol late sixties.
Just before we built our house the weatherman predicted flurries.. I got home from work and the phone rings..are you coming to work.. yes ..well they’re closing the roads..my daughter walks in.. she was hit by the plow th hat couldn’t see her. The house next to us wasn’t visible..we had fifteen foot drifts it took three weeks before they could chew a single path on the highway.. side roads stayed closed the entire winter. That wasn’t that long ago.
Its winter good ones and bad ones ..
The old indian I knew had a good saying… when asked what do the indians have to say about winter….
” It’s dam cold out there”
Bug out for what? We are blessed to live the life we live here in America. Especially in the here and now. If you aren’t making money during this time, you never will and probably never have…if you aren’t happy with your life now…you never will be happy or you never have been. If you aren’t optimistic about the future of this great country now…you never will be optimistic and you never were either.
We have it 1000 times better than our grandparents and parents today. They survived two world wars, a Great Depression, Spanish Flu, Diptheria, Measles, H2N2, Polio, the assassination of a President, civil rights leader and a Presidential candidate, the Vietnam War…I could go on and on. If you want to whine and take a woe is me attitude in the greatest time in American history…well…you have issues. Don’t let a a group of brainless Neanderthal’s still wearing MAGA hats get you down. They are way too stupid to do anything except weed themselves out of existence. You all sound like a bunch of spoiled brats
I love this particular contribution from Mark!!
Someone has to say it ;-)?! I feel this way too.
Choices,
Most people with conviction, pride, determination, courage, resolve, and intellect feel this way too. At least 81 million of us. You are in good company! Your handle. “choices” shows that you understand the difference from right and wrong. It’s the good “choices” that launch us to extraordinary heights and the bad ones to the depths of despair. Many commenters on this site choose the latter and that’s sad and it shows in their written dereliction.
In a “bug-out” scenario, those “brainless Neanderthals” will be the ones to take your shit and maybe leave you twisting in the wind. You, Mark, have a severe case of “cognitive dissonance”.
If you side with the Neanderthal’s wearing MAGA caps , then you quickly need to weed yourself out of existence. No place for you in America. Change or move.
Said the elitist aristocrat that obliviously stands on everyone else’s shoulders.
Sir Marky, today is about survival and bugging out and you go off with your TDS insulting the majority of readers here, calling US names again. Things not looking so good for ya? Thanks for the update to your mental condition. Your good buddies over at pedo-protection Lincoln Project got ya stirred up? I wish ya WELL, I got to go split wood and scoop snow and watch the clown show during coffee breaks. here is the video the Capitol invaders took themselves with a little explaining, everyone should give this a watch, Y would someone video their crime? What a set up, these are NOT President Trump or Q supporters, but injected lefties, ACTING like Trump supporters
We are watching a scripted movie, grab some popcorn
https://www.brighteon.com/930b273a-2662-4633-80ad-a282df7fc599
Get the straight jackets out. Darrel has gone off the rails with his Con-s-Piracy babble again. You are the MOST UNAMERICAN idiot ever! Pry the Trump chip out of your microscopic brain a d stop the lies.
And your Lincoln Log boyz are the epitome of virtue? You’ve proven you prefer power and wealth over anything good in America. Next you’ll be pimping N.A.M.B.L.A.
“Bug out for what?”
Let me see… hmm..viewed from the street. . your the rich guy on the hill… flowers fall along your path of life … you have the life of luxury… drive a fancy car simple things are not even a nuisance..
My guess ..not all of those that work for you are that blessed..
You live in a city of millions and young executives are forced to deficate on the sidewalks. Living in their cars etc.. those below that are even in worse shape..
Now my thought is in a real SHTF scenario.. your neighborhood would be one of the first on the list to be visited.
What sleep in the back seat of the buggy or on a nice soft bed with a pillow..
Those that told me the tales of being sent to camps had some real horror stories.. they to thought that people would be civil..life would continue without chaos
Again. Another idiot telling lies. Come to my city and show me what you think you know.
Still refusing to recognize the human poop on your hallowed street of S.F. Walking Buzzard? All you have to do it search “Poop on San Francisco Streets” on YouTube. Whatever puts money in your pocket.
Lol lol Mark you obviously didn’t read the paper.. or watch the news..
I had a friend that did his mission there . He would joke it’s a city you don’t want to bend over to pick something you dropped up..kick it to the corner first..lol
I am sorry to say that My plans of visiting the shizt city is so far never on my list of destinations. It’s to expensive in the nice areas and to filthy by human standards where the vast majority of regular income people live.
Just saying If poverty food stamp level is just shy a quarter million I couldn’t afford to buy ramon noodles there..
Just take the rose colored glasses off and read what’s being said in the local and national news..( it’s not a secret)
Oh that isn’t flowers that’s emitting that aromatic essence..
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/amp/Jane-Kim-s-clean-streets-campaign-pledge-met-12733293.php
I live here genius. The only poop I see are from rich women who walk their dogs and it’s beneath them to pick up their dogs poop. Believe me, if I do encounter that, I will be the first person in line at city hall sending something be done. I had the same problem in my toney suburban neighborhood in the Midwest 25 year ago. I found out who they were and the next time it happened, I dumped the their dogs poop right on their front porch with a note. Never happened again. Some things never change.
And the you tube stuff? It’s about as real as the evidence about voter fraud that Trump has said he will be showing everyone at the end of the day for every day since the election. Funny how you boobs keep falling for that each and every day.
Yet, the cosmic truth is there: People in the Midwest learned.
The massive homeless camp II in Oakland? Not so much.
Don’t venture north of Freemont on the 880 – different world.
George, for the 8 billionth time. Weather |= Climate
In terms you should understand, Climate is RMS, Weather is Peak to Peak.
Best wishes to you both.
George
this weather is the begining of a mini ice agge pole shift
acording to Clif High.
also see Suspiious Observers.com about the
Bert
screwed up, about the comming pole shift
Bert
George;
Best wishes, and speedy recovery to you and your wife. As Shakespeare said, “youth is wasted on the young”. Wish I had my 30 yr old body back [65 now], but with current brains.
Wife had partial knee replacements, both at the same time, few years back. Modest recovery time, but well worth the pain and time.
Up her in “The Peoples Republic of Ontario”, it’s -13C, but sunny, and we’re more used to the cold. Block heaters for car engines, and the snowblower is considered a home appliance.
Bug Out Vehicle
Get a Prius.
50+ mpg (they do get better highway milage if you can keep it down to 55, which most can’t do since Americans are born with extra heavy feet). Then have U-Haul install a hitch with light wiring (yes Toyota says NO towing with a Priuses before the 2016 models but U-Haul has hitches for them and LOTS of people tow light loads with them. (just got a quote yesterday from U- Haul yesterday to put a hitch on – $162 out the door if I don’t have the wiring done). Rule of thumb is that a load on a non tow rated vehicle needs to be limited to a max of 1/2 of the weight of the vehicle but in reality it should be 1/4 for a Prius (gives you about 750# total weight for the trailer and load), 1/3 if you want to push it.
Finally pick up one of those light weight fold up trailers (spend the extra money for an aluminum one vs steel) to put in the garage and put a plywood floor put on it (marine grade obviously) and prebuild railings for the sides and then get a few extra gas cans (do NOT fill and keep in the garage – DANGEROUS plus regular gas goes back over time fwiw).
The Prius has about a 10+- gallon tank so if you don’t tow anything you will be going about 500 miles per tankful. With towing a light weight trailer, which a LOT of people do, count on more like 35 mpg but towing a SMALL trailer does give you a bit more carrying capacity ANY you can carry any extra gas OUTSIDE of the car.
Used Priuses are all over the place. Depending upon the milage they run anywhere from $3000 to $15,000, one used car dealer I know says the best ones are the 3rd generation ones (2010-2015), NOT the latest iditerations of them. One nice thing about Priuses is that there are so many out there that one can have reconditioned battery packs (with warranty) installed in them for about $900-$1,300 versus a new battery from Toyota for $4,500 or so installed.
Even here in North Country (and rust central) I see LOTS of them for sale with mid 200,000 miles, 15 yeas old AND NO RUST, so mechanically they seem to hold up really really well, even the higher milage ones.
ONE huge advantage of the Prius over a diesel VW (I had one once and liked it … but …) is that LOTS of places now have experience working on the Priuses and parts are available EVERYWHERE, used parts from wrecked ones are available EVERYWHERE. Try getting parts for a diesel VW to repair it … you better hope the factory parts warehouse is still open and shipping parts or that thing is unlikely to ever move another inch.
For SHTF vehicle future repair ability get an older used American Vehicle or get a Toyota. There is a reason Toyota is the vehicle of choice for terrorists everywhere, and ISIS in particular.
Finally … WHY in the heck does he want to go to Idaho? Why not Missouri or Arkansas? They are both much closer. In a SHTF situation what is the water situation going to be in Idaho, particularly with dams and irrigation systems not working? Can you grow crops out there with just the natural rainfall and NO irrigation? (I genuinely do not know – but the West is mostly arid) Ditto with drinking water with dams off line and electricity off line?
Hi, George,
Thanks for including my crab cake recipe for the group to have. Wishing Elaine a speedy and complete recovery.
Regarding the person from the Chicago area who is planning a bug out to Idaho, I would ask several questions. Does he have a specific place already chosen and reserved for him and his in Idaho? Are there people in the designated place in Idaho who can help him? Does he know more than one route to get there? Should he transfer in stages some of his belongings to there? I feel that doing anything last minute is not altogether wise, especially if you just put your finger on a map to select a place. This decision to leave requires a lot of thought and logistics. If he thinks that the place he currently is in is becoming too dangerous, he might consider making plans to leave this year and soon. I saw the photos of people trying to leave hurricanes in years past. What an absolute mess that was, being stuck in traffic jams for hours. A few years ago, people were stranded on I-40 going east from Texas into New Mexico during the winter and were stuck on the road around Amarillo more than a day. Most were unprepared for the intense snow conditions. Being prepared is a vast subject. Thanks.
I can’t wait to make the crab cakes Nancy they sound delicious..
Costco still has the crab there to..
I love how the chicken breasts they sell are packaged..each individual wrapped and sealed..
The Maunder Minimum (or Sun spot cycle affecting an Ice Age)is due in 2030:
https://phys.org/news/2015-07-ice-age.html
the study of deuterium in the Antarctic showed that there were five global warmings and four Ice Ages during the past 400 thousand years. An increase in the volcanic activity comes after the Ice Age and it leads to greenhouse gas emissions. The magnetic field of the Sun grows, which means that the flux of cosmic rays decreases, increasing the number of clouds and leading to the warming again. Next comes the reverse process, when the magnetic field of the sun decreases and the intensity of cosmic ray rises, reducing the clouds and making the atmosphere cool again. This process comes with some delay.
“NEW: Then, sleeping in the guest room, our move of Elaine to the main house (which has back up propane heating) was speeded up by a “near fire” event.
The lights began to flicker – and there was an arcing noise in the wall near the heater. ”
https://youtu.be/1IPPn9t6dyE
Check your wires…
When I built our house I hired an electrician that started then vanished.. leaving me to finish wiring the house.. I decided to use heavier gauge. So 10 gauge went throughout.. the three bedrooms that he wired he used a lighter gauge.. I never gave it a second thought and plugged heaters in..
They take on average fifteen amps.. of course you have a tv and lamp etc maybe a clock.. all just fine but the combined use may not be enough to trip the breaker but it will heat up the insulation and eventually that will break down . Chances of a fire are all over it..
Needless to say I had a similar event.. I did have a different electrician come in and run 20 amp circuits just for the heaters and repair the damaged er wires.
In double wides a common product used was aluminum wire.. which flexes and heats up more than copper.
Heaven forbid heater comes on in the middle of the night …shorts out and fire..
Hi, George,
Had my direction wrong; they were coming from the East going west from Texas on their way into New Mexico. Sorry.
“When you have on your home maintenance list to have an electrician retighten every electrical connection in your home every 10-years, don’t put it off.”
AMEN! When I bought the 1972-vintage Volcano Ranch here, the home inspector found a reverse-polarity socket in the far bedroom, noted in his report. Just as a matter of course, I set about replacing EVERY electrical outlet in the house. Old, crusty contacts, partly covered in paint overspray in the slots, with loose ‘push-in’ wire connections. New contractor grade outlets are a buck apiece at the Depot hardware store. That and some elbow grease with a screwdriver (and the power OFF!) while the house was empty yet and I found to my shock that some brainiac ‘electrician’ had cross-wired the first outlet in the daisy chain that fed one whole side of the house. Half the outlets in the house were the wrong polarity! Yeah, electrical fires start at the outlets. Old crusty outlets are a danger. For a hard-core electrician, you can get a small infra-red (FLIR) camera that will show you hot spots or unusual heating at your electrical connections that are due for tightening or maintenance.
They are harder to find in the ashes…
Ooooh… be careful with that. Had a supervisor that was, basically, showing off for our new director who located some loose connections on a 3 phase panel in our boiler room. Evidently they showed a high heat return on a FLIR camera. I was instructed to stand close so I could “pull him off if he got hung up” which only showed the outright idiocy of the new director. So my supervisor and I went out to accomplish the task. The panel was on the floor level so he got down and stuck a long screwdriver in to tighten the connection while I stood off a few feet. The next thing I knew there was a huge explosion, a white light like I’d never seen before or since and smoke filled the general area. When I regained my sight (which was all black and white like the TV we had in the house when I was a kid) I saw the guy crawling out from under a cloud of smoke toward me. There was no “pulling him off” anything like that! I didn’t regain my color vision for about 45 minutes and the supervisor was lucky he had any vision at all. His glasses saved his eyes while molten metal was blown into his face.
Granted, this was an extremely high power panel but don’t go cranking down on electrical connections unless you know their true conditions and don’t have a director you want to impress.
BTW- Mercury is retrograde until Feb. 22. Plan accordingly. Sounds like George is getting an excessive dose of it this cycle.
Ure has been aware of Mercury in retrograde for decades.
E’s surgery has been planned for month’s. All good.
Carrying a short over President’s Day ?
Always introspect during Retrograde.
God Bless you and Elaine, G.
As to your friend bugging out to Idaho, having lived in Montana I became aware that if Montana wanted to it could easily shut down the entire western part of the state. Closing roads from interstates to 2 lanes using the mountain passes the roads all go through is very possible. If one wants to bug out, you have to have a specific plan for the entire route of travel. There can be a lot of in between with lots of others moving too. Move early instead of even a bit to late.
The upcoming weather is going to be a once in a lifetime cold snap for Texas (hopefully).
On the main topic, the decision to leave or stay is very much predicated by the specific external event, your personal circumstance, and your resources.
If you are hell bent on running, and have the resources, then drive a diesel, put a trailer hitch on it, and keep a trailer with enough empty diesel cans to get you where you are going. Diesel pick-ups are comfortable, and the mid-size ones get reasonable fuel mileage. The next step up is to have a domestic diesel tank you can draw from when service stations aren’t servicing (if you are in a location which permits it).
When I was working out of town in hurricane country for extended periods, my current home became my destination for hurricane evacuations. Coastal communities frequently tell residents to get out and don’t come back until we tell you to in a hurricane emergency. Water and sewer service interruptions are the usual issues. And yeah, I have that little trailer which has ventilation and enough brackets to tie down 20 gallons of fuel. I always managed to hit the road soon enough to avoid having to fill all those cans. But having those things available is known as contingency planning.
Individuals living in fire country have the same issue on a regular basis and there are a lot of CA coastal types have these sort of contingency plans in place for the multitude of disaster scenarios that particular location serves up.
Accommodating these sorts of interruptions is just part of life. The demeaning remarks about individuals who plan ahead just missed the point entirely, and sounds like a rationalization for lack of planning. Money, credit cards, and entitlement attitudes aren’t always of use in an evacuation scenario. And yes, a bug-out is just a slang term for an evacuation.
Diesel is the only long term, I mean LOOOOOONG term, storage option for fuel. We’ve got diesel tanks on the ranch that were filled in the very early 2000s, MAYbe late 90s?, that I still fill my tractor with plus a splash of Diesel Kleen. I haven’t been brave enough to put it through my F350 yet, though.
Trump rides! He’s going to need loot building out that new political party and media empire.
Your bug-out buddy has a choice of two reasonable plans:
1) Sell the Idaho redoubt and acquire one located between Ladysmith, Wisconsin, and Gwinn, Michigan.
2) Retire, or relocate his practice to a place that’s between Ogden and Helena, and within ~150 miles of Interstate 15, or between Boise and Tacoma, if his practice requires a nearby level-1 trauma center.
Nothing else makes sense.
When we first communicated on this, I told you the following:
{paraphrased} My bug-out contingency is to leave within 24hrs of a level-2 SHTF (like Yellowstone), and 1-3hrs for a level-1 (EMP attack.) This is because there is a time lag between when an incident occurs, and locals get their contingency plans in-gear. LEAs and EMAs ALL have emergency action plans designed for them to get on top of a situation, control it, and prevent panic rioting or anarchy. Generally speaking, the panic sets in with GenPop in about 3 days, so the FEMA surrogates will spend about 1-day collecting information and part of the second, deliberating which contingency plans to implement, before the jack-boots hit the ground.
‘Thing is, EVERY plan involves shutting down ALL ingress and egress. ALL city limits and county lines will have roadblocks up within about 40 hours of a SHTF-level incident which occurs anywhere in CONUS. No motor vehicle bridges will be passable. Worse, for an East-to-West trip, every notch or pass through the mountains that’s navigable is already a road or trail and already a choke-point. Every one will be roadblocked or barricaded with rubble.
If your friend can drive straight through from Chicago to, say Boise, that’s 25h 5min (1693 mi) straight driving time, nonstop, using principally, Interstate 80 (not counting the 3½ hrs it’ll take him to go from Lakeshore Drive to Aurora.) It is also assuming the LEAs in Davenport, Des Moines, Omaha, Lincoln, Cheyenne, Laramie, SLC, and Ogden are all taking their sweet time to get the roadblocks in place, and there are no accidents, incidents, rock slides, or wigged-out sociopaths along the way.
With regards to a VW diesel: The trip would require 44.5 gallons of diesel in my Jetta — 52 with a trailer (winter diesel + driving into a headwind would cut my normal 49mpg to about 38, even with cetane boost.) The Jetta is fit with a Class-3+ (2000kg) hitch (factory accessory in Germany, unavailable in North America) but understand, that 4400 pounds includes the weight of the trailer, and I’d not go over about 2500 (1500 pounds, cargo), even in an emergency, with my 3700 pound car. IIRC someone was marketing a “drop in the trunk” aux tank for A4-A5 and B3-B4 VW diesels. I believe there were a couple threads on it at either TDIClub or VWVortex.
With that said, I don’t believe, even if he left within minutes of when the poo hit the rotating air circulator, he COULD make such a drive successfully in anything less than a full-dress Bradley with railroad track auxiliary wheels. His percentage of actual success would be very low in anything short of a Gulfstream. You know I play the numbers and percentages. His, for a 1700 mile drive under impending Martial Law, are simply not there…
Every prepper should have a bug-out plan.
What happens if your hidey-hole is discovered?
What happens when your 8-person personal defense force faces 200 starving Mad Max zombies or the 21st Century equivalent of Quantrill’s Raiders?
What happens when you’re eating popcorn and a forest fire roars through, or an earthquake reduces your fortified pillbox to rubble?
What happens when a drone-swarm spots your fat, juicy 4-legged food or 2-legged leisure-time activities?
Not even a rat trusts himself to a single hole. Could anyone as focused on preparations for bad times as a “prepper” or “survivalist” be less smart than a rat?
____________
Another quote from an E-Mail I sent George, nearly 7 years ago:
“…To be defensible, a location should be invisible and shielded. Movement makes the invisible, visible. Shielding, via natural attributes like trees, brush, rocks, etc. hides movement and enables one to do the things necessary to sustain their position, like feeding the chickens. Natural shielding also masks the livestock noise and in some cases, can eliminate it completely. Multiple means of ingress and egress make movement in one, predictable area, less observable.
I am a firm believer in JW Rawles’ “50 mile safety zone” i.e. that if one is within 50 miles of a population center when the shit hits the fan, they’re going to have a bad day (while it lasts.) Rawles came up with this more-or-less arbitrary number because in his estimation and based on his military experience, the vast majority of people are too lazy to walk more than 50 miles to pilfer or plunder…”
____________
What happens if Rawles is wrong? For my “forever home,” one of my (never-spoken) requirements is a means of escape with a high probability of success. With the advent of cheap drone technology, even a hidden valley may no longer be so, which makes a rapid bug-out contingency plan even more important. After an EMP, drones would cease to be a major concern, but if the SHTF situ is a civil war or military invasion — every faction will have ’em, and the sojers will all be hungry.
As many of you know, my focus is surviving an EMP. With that said,
NEVER let your prepping become so monochromatic you ignore the obvious…
You also have to look at local geography. I now live on what amounts to a plateau ~45 miles from a medium size city . There are only 3 ways to directly get here from that city and they all go through canyon like cuts (think 100′ vertical walls) and have to go around a military base (with few troops, it’s mostly a headquarters and training facility now) the size of a county. The roads would become parking lots in short order with or without assistance. The terrain has hillsides steep enough to almost need ropes between me and that city (not too many people can walk far through that). To go around all that is around a minimum of 75-100 miles with few towns or amenities. Even though I’m within 50 miles of that city the practical distance in a SHTF scenario is double that at worst.
James Johnson, ex-nuke
You have excellent taste.
Another escerpt from that same 2014 E-Mail to George:
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IMO a “bugout location” search should start with an analysis of potential locations with respect to the following threats, listed in descending order:
1. Proximity to population centers
2. Proximity to “classed” nuclear targets
3. Proximity to nuclear power plants
4. Flood potential
5. Earthquake potential
6. Volcanic potential
7. Tornadic potential
8. Prevailing wind
and the following attributes, also listed in descending order:
1. Ingress/egress
2. Footprint
3. Water
4. Sustainability – food
5. Sustainability – energy
6. Sustainability – environment
7. Communications
8. Connectivity
Attributes can be improved upon. Threats can’t really be mitigated.
A good bugout location must be both defensible and escapable. Defense and escape need to consider both man-made (like meltdowns) and man-caused (like that roving hoard from MadMaxLand) events, as well as those from a more natural source.
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I didn’t list things like hurricanes, because limiting potential escape paths with a natural barrier is PPP.
these gold stories are the most pathetic sheet ever written in any form . the garbage on moriartys sales yard 321 and the garbage on sheetco dont even deserve comment . everybody every single one even good old george is a self interested spruker who avoids the big issue . market crash= depression. and its ready . there is no such thing as inflationary depression . i give up on this garbage . good luck
I watched the film Doctor Zhivago yesterday, mostly a window into Russian history, the love story is secondary at best. My takeaway: we cannot fine-tune the timing of bugging out. If this person really has done so well financially, get the darn place set up YESTERDAY. If possible, move loved ones there now. Why hang around in Chicago other than to further build the nest egg, are his priorities straight? Time to think like the Idaho community he is moving to! Russian Revolution was not over and done with in 1917 by dethroning and murdering the Czar, it began over a decade of chaos, authoritarianism, 4 different armies vying for power, with ever-changing results. Do any of us really know the path the US is going to take over the next decade? NOPE.
People with professional credentials go where the jobs are. Taking the job to where you would rather live isn’t always an easy option. Happenstance plays into those sort of opportunities.
Dr.Zhivago is particularly relevant in the current US political climate.
Now to be fair…that trend has been progressing..around here it’s an after effect of Covid-19.. seems that toilets are closed due to covid-19 the parking lots sidewalks and trashcans are now the accepted norm.. heaven help if you shop or dine out.. you can’tuse the toilets you know covid-19 a young woman had to squat next to dollar general last night due to this ever infected covid-19 so everyone everywhere is following Sanfran..( it’s not a secret)
Oh that isn’t flowers that’s emitting that aromatic essence..
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/amp/Jane-Kim-s-clean-streets-campaign-pledge-met-12733293.php
“If you side with the Neanderthal’s wearing MAGA caps , then you quickly need to weed yourself out of existence. No place for you in America. Change or move.” Note to G_____: I object to thinly veiled calls for ethnic hate cleansing in the comment section, just as I have previously objected to antisemitism.
How does a complete stranger identify MAGA cap sympathizers once the MAGA caps go in the box in the attic? Perhaps it is by their property he covets? I want to take your home or your business; therefore, you must have been a Neanderthal MAGA cap sympathizer. Ethnic hatred is frequently a ruse to justify property theft. There is clearly a thinly camouflaged ethnic hate component to these diatribes.
To “bug-out or not to bug-out,” if I may say so,
is all within your own mind. God may not have endowed humans with free will — he’s given us choices instead, JMO. May all of you make good
choices in life, because your life counts on it. ;-)
And when the choices eventual dwindle, you’ll know why the UrbanSurvival & Peoplenomics philosphy is “Pack what you can between the ears.”
Hello George, I’d tried to “bug-out” while I was @10 since I didn’t like the world then?! Never tried suicide, but thought about so repeatedly. Now, past 90, I had learned meanwhile that most of life happens “between the ears” and that is one of the places where we can make changes?!
May the spirits of life be with You, Elaine, and Zeuss, (and all the good people reading this!). That’s why my handle is choices ;-).
“17+ years, we have never seen weather like this.”
I’ve seen it twice here in northeast Texas in the past 40 years. December 1983 and Christmas/New Year 2000/2001. We lost lots of 70′ pine trees in both episodes. The 2000/2001 episode left us without electricity for 12 days, but I had the foresight to build a 500 gallon water tower, so we had hot and cold running water for the duration. Only had to run the generator twice to refill the tower.
We bugged out from Dallas 42 years ago and are burrowed into the woods like ticks. We’ll never be natives to this area because we didn’t graduate from a local high school, but we are known and respected by the community. We’ll be bugging in, thank you very much.
For your Chicago friend, I definitely would NOT recommend an ultralight. Too slow, too limited in weight carrying capacity and fuel capacity. A light sport, on the other hand, could carry more stuff a lot faster and farther.
Best wishes to you and Elaine for speedy recoveries.
Hope your wife’s operation went good . Good food key to recovery