The Failure To Bug Out

[Shoobee]

Today we all are getting to watch on PBS, BBC, CNN, HLN, ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX all the heart rending stories of the people who failed to bug out in the face of the hurricane, called Sandy, even though they were given fair warning by NOAA and the NWS.

NYC is unusual in that like other similar big cities there are large numbers of residents who don't own a car.

If you own a car, you always need to be prepared to pack your car and bug out.

If you don't own a car, you need to depend on Amtrack or Greyhound to get you and your suitcases out and bug out.

Anyone who cannot afford a bus train or car needs to have a backpack always ready to go, and then start walking, hoping someone else with a car or truck will give them a ride out of hell's fury.

If Mother Nature throws a big storm to flood out your home, and you know it is coming, it makes no sense to stay and wait out the disaster. This is one of many countless ways that can get you killed.

Storms come with fair warnings thanks to NOAA and the NWS. It's too bad people are not realistic about heeding those warnings.

Everyone should have a kit, make a plan, and stay informed.

Since dialing 911 will be totally preoccupied, your kit needs to include one of Samuel Colt's or John Browning's inventions as well, with ammo, and with the training and skill and reflexes to use them properly.

I feel bad for the people who did bug out and now their homes are gone. As to whether federal FEMA funds should be made available to them is a political issue being debated between the two major candidates.

But I shake my head when I see the ones who were not smart enough to prepare and bug out. Worst case for them is some of them and/or their kids died. Second worst is that they lost everything including their cars and anything they might have salvaged had they left when they were told to do.

Watching all these tragedies on the news leaves me with mixed emotions.

Here in Calif our nemesis is normally quakes and fires. So we are forced to be always prepared as well.

Always prepared. I vaguely recall that the BSA tried to teach everybody about that too. Not sure what the GSA focused on though. Obvious from all this is that not everyone got the message about being always prepared.

 

[MAC702]

Even those who are "forced" (by their life's choices, usually) to bug in, instead of bug out, need to be prepared for several days (more is better) of sustainability in their residence, to include a waste disposal system.

 

[MAC702]

...your kit needs to include one of Samuel Colt's or John Browning's inventions as well, with ammo, and with the training and skill and reflexes to use them properly...

Don't forget the snap caps.

SORRY! That was bad, bad, bad of me. I'm usually so much above crossing threads. Dammit.

But I'm hoping I'm forgiven because of how much I agree with this. The government needs to be held accountable by their obviously purposeful lack of inclusion of any kind of weapon in their recommendations for survival kits. The problem starts at the level of lack of firearms safety taught in public schools.

As for including a John Browning invention:

 

[MAC702]

I very purposely chose to live near a metropolitan area (good for business) in the middle of mountainous desert at least several hundred miles inland. I already pay higher prices for crap when I play tourist on the coast. I'm not paying to rebuild your house there.

 

[Shoobee]

I very purposely chose to live near a metropolitan area (good for business) in the middle of mountainous desert at least several hundred miles inland. I already pay higher prices for crap when I play tourist on the coast. ...

The hotel tax in Vegas is just as bad as anywhere else.

My niece lives and works there, so I get to see her every Xmas when we all get together at her house.

My high school also holds their 5 year reunions there too.

I love the town and the shows and the pretty dancing girls. I especially love hiking in the Charleston mountains. It's a paradise oasis there.

But the hotel tax in Vegas is just as bad as that in San Diego or anywhere along the Santa Barbara coastline.

 

[MAC702]

The hotel tax in Vegas is just as bad as anywhere else.

My niece lives and works there, so I get to see her every Xmas when we all get together at her house.

My high school also holds their 5 year reunions there too.

I love the town and the shows and the pretty dancing girls. I especially love hiking in the Charleston mountains. It's a paradise oasis there.

But the hotel tax in Vegas is just as bad as that in San Diego or anywhere along the Santa Barbara coastline.

I'll take your word for it; I've never stayed in one. Rereading my last, I didn't mean to direct it at anyone personally.

We must all live with the choice of where we chose to live. Some can afford to live in a place that will see a major storm every generation. Most who do live there, should not.

 

[Shoobee]

I'll take your word for it; I've never stayed in one. Rereading my last, I didn't mean to direct it at anyone personally.

We must all live with the choice of where we chose to live. Some can afford to live in a place that will see a major storm every generation. Most who do live there, should not.

Well at least you are back on point regarding the storm and bugging out.

There are rich and poor everywhere, including the middle class between the two.

Sure, when the Founding Freemasons established the federal government, there was no social welfare.

It took a very big financial crisis and depression to create the social programs of The New Deal under FDR in the 1930s. They were popular and they gave FDR and Harry Truman re-election after re-election.

LBJ thought that was not enough and added Medicare too in the 1960s. It is popular with the Seniors now.

Social programs are always popular. Romney is campaigning against them, and his timing is bad. The best way to campaign against something is when it is not needed at the moment. NJ and NY are not swing states however, so Romney would be wasting his time up there anyway. And Romney's crazy Utah-mormon ideas about getting rid of Medicare is foolishness in a democracy, where the middle class votes and outnumbers the rich.

I predict that Romney will run and win Utah Governor or Utah Senator someday. But that will likely be the only thing he ever wins. His timing is bad on all the other issues, FEMA, Medicare, abortion, tax cuts for the rich, bank deregulation, more military spending when it is not needed and the generals and admirals have not asked for more, and everything else in his 5 point plan, which sounds more like Gingrich's contract on America.

But back on point, more people should have bugged out of NY and NJ. At least that would have saved their lives and their cars and whatever they could fit into their cars to take with them.

 

[Shoobee]

Don't forget the snap caps.

SORRY! That was bad, bad, bad of me. I'm usually so much above crossing threads. Dammit.

But I'm hoping I'm forgiven because of how much I agree with this. The government needs to be held accountable by their obviously purposeful lack of inclusion of any kind of weapon in their recommendations for survival kits. The problem starts at the level of lack of firearms safety taught in public schools.

As for including a John Browning invention:

If you tried to teach firearms safety in the schools then you would have the 60% of non-gun-owning households on your back calling for your resignation -- the soccer moms who believe that 911 brings a LEO out of their cell phones like a genie out of Alladin's lamp.

 

[MAC702]

If you tried to teach firearms safety in the schools then you would have the 60% of non-gun-owning households on your back calling for your resignation ....

Maybe. I think we can assume we'll never know. On the other hand, look at all the crap they've put in the curriculum and despite any uproar, everything settles down. The real blockage is the administration, not the parents.

If done properly, firearms safety can easily be worked into curriculum with other safety things that should also be added (like electrical safety).

The NRA's Eddie Eagle firearms safety program, last I heard, was being implemented in Virginia. I don't remember the details.

 

[WalkingWolf]

Maybe. I think we can assume we'll never know. On the other hand, look at all the crap they've put in the curriculum and despite any uproar, everything settles down. The real blockage is the administration, not the parents.

If done properly, firearms safety can easily be worked into curriculum with other safety things that should also be added (like electrical safety).

The NRA's Eddie Eagle firearms safety program, last I heard, was being implemented in Virginia. I don't remember the details.

If they can teach a child to put on a condom, they can teach firearm safety. As it is now the children get their firearm education on violent video games. Our youth now are not even trusted to have a pocket knife, yet as soon as the get some new hairs somewhere, they are trying to indoctrinate them into para military force.

 

[davidmcbeth]

Sandy was a joke .. only true idiots got injured & hey, they would have injured themselves in another manner sooner or later IMO.

Bug out? Over Sandy? What a laugh. Drive inland for a couple of hours and return, no brainer.

 

[Gil223]

Anyone who cannot afford a bus train or car needs to have a backpack always ready to go, and then start walking, hoping someone else with a car or truck will give them a ride out of hell's fury.

Having a packed backpack, (or "Go Bag", or "Bug Out Bag") is just good survival prep (everybody should have one of those - most people don't)."Hoping that someone else with a car or truck will give you a ride" is not good survival prep -

The average walking speed for older pedestrians was 4.11 feet per second, compared with 4.95 for younger pedestrians (that's 2.8 miles per hour for older pedestrians and 3.4 miles per hour for younger pedestrians) according to a study by the Road Engineering Journal. Older females had the slowest walking speed at 3.89 feet per second.

If one has small children with them on their trek, they will be slowed down. The best bet for someone hoofing it in a big city, is to get to a designated Disaster Shelter as quickly as possible, since all the angels may be busy tending to the elderly, shut-ins, and those others who are physically or mentally incapable of taking any survival action on their own.

 

[davidmcbeth]

If they can teach a child to put on a condom, they can teach firearm safety..

I don't think they can teach them how to use a condom ... lol.

Firearm safety is learned on-the-go IMO. No need for classes. Its just another hurdle the gov't put up their.

Here's my safety class: don't look down the barrel .... next class please.

 

[OC for ME]

Sandy was a joke .. only true idiots got injured & hey, they would have injured themselves in another manner sooner or later IMO.

Bug out? Over Sandy? What a laugh. Drive inland for a couple of hours and return, no brainer.

I recommend that you review some of the photos depicting the destruction along the Jersey Shore. I agree, the immediate coastal area residents should evacuate and then return when the state permits. Any residents one mile in from the beach have a tough decision to make, stay or leave.

My experience, Charleston SC, Hurricane Hugo, 1989. Some stayed on the beach and survived the storm, others who stayed on the beach did not survive the storm.

http://share.carolinalive.com/ChannelGallery.aspx?c=2289

 

[skidmark]

The problem with bugging out in the face of a known disaster is that there will be a whole lot of others doing exactly the same thing, using the exact same route you chose. The Interstate Parking Lots leading from New Orleans to Points Elsewhere ahead of Katrina pointed that out.

Bugging out is a good deal if you can get ahead of the herd. Know the warning signs of your current AO becoming untenable and take action to leave for Points Elsewhere before the MSM starts broadcasting the Borg's instructions to evacuate. If you wait for the Official Word you will fid yourself in something resembling the starting line at the NYC Marathon - everybody clogged up and needing to wait for those ahead of them to actually start moving. (Last year I timed it - took over five minutes for the folks in the back of the pact to just cross the Start line after the gun went off.) What happens when the guy half a mile ahead of you who took off with 1/8 of a tank of gas stalls out is not pretty. And unfortunately there are very few people who are willing to push him off to the side to be abandoned - they'd apparently all prefer to die waiting in line behind him!:banghead:

The problem with bugging out in time is that it is costly and often can turn out to have been unnecessary. (I know, better to bug out and not need to that to need to and not be able to.)

The point of all this? That if you asre going to bug out, you need to do it in time to avoid getting stuck in the herd who waited until the mandator evacuation order, and be prepared to being called Chicken Little if it turns out TEOTWAWKI did not happen - this time!

stay safe.