Let’s start with what the purpose of the bag is. This bag is designed to be carried when you have to walk away from everything, your house, your car, your bicycle or anything else which would be better than carrying everything in a bag. You have to be in a situation where you are leaving it all behind and surviving off of what you can carry on your back!!!
Can there be a situation in which you have to pack a bag and run into the hills? Yes, civil war, electric magnetic pulse, nuclear war and a host of other issues at the far end of the spectrum of possibilities. This means we should plan for the possibility because there is a chance of any one of these situations happening and each of them could happen……. Now!
What we want to do is realize in reality most of us are not physically able to carry everything we would need on our backs to survive FOREVER in the frozen, apocalyptic, zombie ruled wasteland! A pack to even think about doing this with is going to weight far more than most of us can carry, say 100 pounds easily. Think about it, you would have to carry water, food, shelter, clothing, fire starter equipment, cooking equipment, lights, medical supplies, communication equipment, batteries for the equipment, cutting tools, firearms, ammunition, fishing equipment, snares and, and, and…………..
The weight quickly adds up and every bit of the weight makes a difference. More stuff equals more weight, more weight causes less speed and takes a toll of your body quickly. Our own personal physical fitness needs to be taken into account during our planning. If you have not seen your feet in over a year, you are not going to go very far with a 100 pound pack!!! Period, end of story and I do not want to hear about how you’re sure you can really do it!!!!! Even if you are the palates doing, vegan who runs marathons twice a year, you are not ready to physically carry the weight you would need to carry in an all-inclusive bug out to the hills for the duration bug out bag! Should you doubt this, put a couple sandbags, full of sand, in a pack and go for a ten mile hike.
Having a bag with items to help you make it 72 to 96 hours is a good idea. These can be stashed in the closet or garage and pulled out when a storm is coming or a wild fire threatens your home. These types of bags should work with other items and not be the sole item or plan you have for evacuation. Think of these bags as more of a step up from your Get Home Bag. Combined with your Every Day Carry items, maybe a Bail Out Bag and your Get Home Bag this type of bag allows you to survive a few more days. Instead of packing a backpack to carry everything you need we need to see what we have on hand which would assist us if we did have a situation where we had to leave our home or bug out.
First let’s think about our cars. Most situations we face the odds are we will be able to use our vehicles to move equipment and people. Major storm heading your way, forest fire or maybe a chemical spill are situations where we would have to ‘Bug Out’. In each of these situations we have to take everything we need to set up housekeeping somewhere else as we live like a refugee for an unknown period of time. The vehicle or vehicles allow us to pack more than we could ever strap to our backs and walk with. Of course we have to only take what we “need” when we pack out.
If you have never had decide what goes and what stays this can be an almost paralyzing decision. This type of situation, bugging out, is where prior planning is the key. You need to have items pre-packed or have the ability to quickly pack them. Items such as your identification, insurance papers, and other items to prove who you are and contact information for family and friends. Clothing, bedding and toys for the kids if you have children in your household. You need food with a way to transport it, a cooler or a couple of ice chest. Any medications you or someone in the house needs. All of these things come first before you even start to worry about pictures, your favorite plant or Aunt Betty’s diary from the 1800’s.
Vehicles should be our first choice to move or ‘Bug out’ with. Next you should think about other means of transporting you and the family. If you have them for the family bicycles are better than walking! Of course you cannot haul as much stuff on bicycles as you can in a car but you can move faster than walking. Adding trailers to the bikes slows you down but allows you to take more with you.
Strollers, wagons, gardening carts and even grocery carts need to be utilized before we resort to carrying everything on our backs. If you have children than you have strollers, when we purchase items such as strollers or wagons in the back of our minds we should be taking into account if we could use these items in an emergency. There is a slim chance we would yet buying the right item could help us greatly later! If you do not have children in your household you could still buy a gardening cart and the right one could come in handy during an emergency. Grandchildren give us a reason to have a stroller or a wagon sitting in the garage.
Thinking of bugging out should not revolve around a backpack with hundreds of dollars’ worth of equipment packed into the bag. “Bugging Out” should be thought of as a worst case scenario and planned with reality at the forefront. Should you have to leave; realistically plan by incorporating everything at your disposal, cars, bicycles, wagons, strollers and even a few liberated shopping carts if need be in to the plan. The last thing you want to do is plan for the fantasy of putting packs on to your family and strolling away from the area only to find out your children can not carry their share, your better half is on crutches that month and you really are not in the physical shape you lied and told yourself you were in……………………
With this in mind, take a moment and consider what you would have to do if you did have to leave your home in the next hour! What would you take? How would you transport it? What is a priority? Where would you go? Then make a list! Make a list of everything you would need, locate these items to make sure you know where they are and over the next few days see what you can preposition or prepack in case you did have to go. Do these things now when there is no pressure instead of adding to the stress of making these decisions when the clock is ticking!!!!! Prior Planning, Prevents Poor Performance.
As Always,
Stay Safe
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