Plan To Survive
A single plan is never enough, however, since there is no
one-size-fits-all way to deal with a disaster.
How you best react to a flash flood, for example, may not
be how you best react to economic decline.
Furthermore, no one can give you THE plan for how to deal
with a flash flood or a new depression.
If your house is on a mountain, you may be safest there,
but if it’s in the valley, you must flee.
With all of the available information about the unique
situation you’re in, only you can fully determine what is
right for you and your family.
To help you formulate some plans for various scenarios,
here are the three main ways of dealing with a disaster:
* Bugging Out
If staying in your home is too dangerous, you will need to
leave for some more secure location. This is called
bugging out.
In order to bug out, though, you need somewhere to bug out
to. This is your planned bug-out location.
It’s somewhere close enough that you could get in a
reasonable time by foot (most say three days), but far
enough away that it is less affected by the disaster.
Never expect to Bug Out to a hotel. Hotels have a tendency
to fill up the second an evacuation starts.
Your chosen spot can be anything from an old caravan on a
piece of property that you own to a friend or relative’s
house.
If you own it, you should make sure to stock your bug-out
location with preps. Just because it is safer than your
home doesn’t necessarily mean that it is entirely
unaffected by the crisis situation.
Secondly, you will need a way of getting there. This is a
bug-out vehicle. Most plan on using cars, but some will go
for bicycles or even horses.
Now you might be wondering why you had to expect to walk
to your bug-out location, if you are allowed to take your
car. The reason is simple:
You never know if the roads are blocked or unpassable, or
you simply won’t be able to use your car.
Next, you will need to get a map and figure out how to get
from your home to your location with or without your
bug-out vehicle.
You should know how to exit your area in just about any
direction, but at least using three different paths. You
never know what roads may be blocked or which way danger
comes from.
Next, you should assemble a file folder or plastic pocket
with copies of all the documents that you will need if you
are forced to start your life over.
Your house may not still be standing when you get back, or
you may never get back, so you will need proof of identity,
proof of home ownership, banking and insurance information,
medical papers including inoculation records, etc.
You might even consider providing a family member with a
copy, or making a second copy on a USB drive.
Lastly, you will need a bug-out bag, also known as a
72-hour kit. This is a bag covering all of your needs for
three days.
It will get you from home to where you need to go, even if
forced to go by foot.
* Sheltering in place
If your home has not become too unsafe to stay in, you
will probably decide to shelter in place. This is also
called bugging in.
This is the kind of disaster planning that we have been
mostly dealing with so far in this newsletter series. But
there is more than one way to shelter in place.
There is the pure prepping way; you decide to amass all of
the things you may need during a disaster and keep them
somewhere safe.
You may make alterations to your home to make it safer and
to provide you with more prepping space, and you may take
up some prepping related hobbies…
…but there is really no reason this means why you can’t
lead a day-to-day life that is essentially identical to that
of your neighbors.
There is also the homesteading way. Instead of prepping
for the very long term, you design systems in your daily
life that will keep functioning in a disaster.
Instead of buying large quantities of canned goods, you
may can your own foods which you grow in your garden. You
save seeds to ensure that you will have future crops.
Instead of adding one new set of preps, add new systems.
Don’t buy dried or canned meat and milk powder, but invest
in a goat to provide you with both meat and dairy.
Your life, choosing this strategy, will be significantly
different from most people around you, but that is not a
bad thing.
You may also choose to live mostly as a prepper today, but
be prepared for a future homesteading lifestyle. Do a
little gardening on the side and save seeds for a future
emergency.
* Splitting up
A third way of dealing with a disaster scenario as a
family is one that we don’t talk terribly much about in
today’s survivalist scenario, but it’s worth considering.
It’s a strategy often employed in wartime.
If your home gets less safe, you do have the option of
splitting up. The children could be sent to grandparents
or other relatives living in a safer environment, while
you stay.
There are times when your home is not as safe as it could
be, but at the same time it is not so bad that you feel
comfortable leaving it high and dry.
You may be able to get by at home, but your children may
be in danger, and you might be in danger because you are
unable to stop worrying about and taking care of them.
Some food for thought, I hope. Now get to work detailing
your disaster plans!
Don’t forget this free video showing you some of the most
reliable disaster plans for you and your family:
==> https://survivalventure.com/go/myfamilysurvival
Prep smart,
Victor
https://survivalventure.com