Better too early than too late, right?
It’s a question that was peripherally raised in some comments a post or two back. In preparedness, one of the eternal questions and conundrums is ‘when do you forfeit everything in your normal world to beat the disaster and be ahead of it?’
There are plenty of people, especially ‘first responder’ types, who at some point have to decide, do I abandon my job to care for my family, or do I ‘stay at my post’ and hope my family can get through this without me? In the non-first-responder trades, there’s still that question…when do I walk away from my job/career, pension, etc. in order to get ahead of the disaster?
The problem is, if you wait too long (“Ahh..its probably not serious. I’ll go to work today”) you wind up way behind the curve, caught in evacuation traffic, empty gas stations, roadblocks, and general disorder. But if you leave too early (“This is it. Time to throw it all away and head to the bunker.”) and it turns out to be nothing….well, I hope your resume is current because you’ve probably lost your job.
If you’re going to walk away from your job, your business, your mortgage, your responsibilities, and all that because you think we are about to drop into Mad Max world….you better be right, because trying to undo that sort of bridge-burning is not going to come easy.
For some people, it isnt that big a problem…maybe they already live at their ideal hideout. Perhaps theyre retired with no job to be beholden to. Maybe they live a kind of lifestyle where ‘transitioning’ to an EOTWAWKI lifestyle is no more complicated than closing and locking the gate at the end of the driveway. I suspect, for most of us, it isn’t that easy.
It’s even more complicated when there’s other people involved. Working spouse? Kids? You have to convince them as well that its time to throw away everything you’ve done up to now…career, relationships, etc…because we need to head to Uncle Dave’s cabin to avoid the zombies. Maybe you think the stock market dropping 50% in a day as aircraft carriers head towards Russia is enough to trigger your flight, whereas your spouse may feel that there has to be actual missiles flying and people dying before they’re convinced. Its tough, man.
And, of course, you need to establish that ‘line in the sand’ and then commit to it. “Yeah, there’s a mushroom cloud on the horizon, but…”, “Yeah, the Chinese have invaded Taiwan and sank our carrier group, but…”, “Yeah, a dirty bomb just went off in San Diego, but…” No, you’ve got to really think it through and decide what is and is not your triggering event.
It’s my opinion, and thats it folks..just an opinion, your mileage may vary…that you should have some ‘lines in the sand’ about when youre bumping up to ‘the next level’.
My two cents is that things break slow enough you will be okay assuming you have food and water and the police don’t go door to door rounding everyone up. You won’t be alone if you work, you will all be gathered around the break room watching TV or the internet, think of 9/11. The boss will send everyone home. You got a get home bag and a tank of gas, you will make it. The roads are not going to close right that second, it will fall apart in stages, or at least that is what has happened in other countries.
Watch the traffic if the electric power goes out. A motorbike might be the only vehicle to get you home and away. Baofeng/Yaesu/DX11 and a folding solar panel in a Faraday bag might be the only working portable comms other than smoke signals, heliographs and pigeons.
In the run up to Y2K. The Sheriff’s Office and Police Department planned to take over 2 hotels in walking distance if things tanked. We were going to move our people and their families in until the grid came back. There was a large (for here) grocery store across the street from the jail. It would be commandeered as well. Our fuel provider had a pump rigged to a generator to fuel law enforcement, fire, and ems vehicle and had their tanks topped off 12/30. We also had security on our radio tower sights and the local ham operators set up to provide back up. It was the best short term plan we could think of so that our people could work knowing their families were safe.
Good topic! Fortunately I fall in the category of mostly ‘walking down to the end of the driveway and locking the gate’! I do own my own business, so if I decide to not go in, or tell my employees not to go in, it’s my call. As for the ‘line in the sand’, I, like probably all of your readers have our head on a swivel, so it will probably be that Chinese sinking our carrier group, or the dirty bombs going off on the coast…
That age old survivalist question is almost rhetorical. Why? Because we have never had to face a totally calamitous event like global nuclear war, 50% fatal pandemic or 1859 Carrington event EMP. All disasters have been localized enough that the surrounding infrastructure can come, sooner or later, to aid and rebuild the region that’s hit.
Personally I and my clan call it at nuclear weapons exchange ( by any side or combatants) , epidemic of much nastier proportion than Covid, and of course collapse of the electrical grid on a nationwide scale. My 2 cents ( soon to be phased out actually; some guys might say a harbinger of totally cashless economy) FWIW.
I agree that this is a perennial question all preppers face. I think the answer of when to bug out is often clear only in hindsight. The Jews who left Germany in the mid 1930s demonstrate why it is better to leave years early than a day late.
The best answer may be to live your retreat.
Hell, for the infrastructure to collapse we would need a black death level epidemic, even the Spanish Flu wasn’t bad enough to do that. Personally I say the nuke fear is overblown short a full scale everyone launching all of them. India and Paki going it it? Who cares, it would just be less calls “for my cars extended warranty”. I’ve been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they are not glowing craters and newer bombs produce less fallout per kt then the old ones.
As for the electrical grid, I’m glad I’m in one of two states that isn’t on one of the grids (there are actually 2 main ones). Have other problems but that isn’t one of them.
A tough choice…
Whatever criteria you choose, everybody involved need to be in on them – wife, kids, parents, siblings, etc.
However, you don’t have to all go at once – those with more flexibility could go on an earlier timeline and make sure everything is ready. If you have comms available, they could pick up those who have to abandon vehicles or are otherwise limited.
I would suggest that anybody planning to leave to a retreat have additional fuel available in case of power outages or other reasons gas stations are closed.
Because of these and other reasons, my long term goal is to live at my retreat… But who knows if I’ll be able to do that; job possiblitys and real estate availability will determine that.
When things fall apart, it will be tough for everyone… I don’t look forward to it.
Couldn’t agree with you more. But as we see currently the problem is: there are multiple information/disinformation programs and multiple PsyOps going on at same time from multiple groups, some competing against and some working together or at least for the same outcome and in my humble opinion from a long career in DOD, these fuckers know what they are doing.. So tracking them down to figure out who is the “good” guy or who is the “bad” guy is pretty much impossible.
Thus making a “that’s is we are gone” decision has been many many times harder.
With the MAGA Messiah being what appears to be a schizophrenic/ Bi polar off his meds these days with saying one thing today and a different thing tomorrow then denying he said anything, that compounds things. How do you know IF this fucker is serious or just talking out his ass again?
Then you add in the Religious fanatic Christians in the US and GOD’s chosen Jews in the mix of NeoCons and Zionist admin staff, its a very dangerous mix.
How to make that decision is each person personal choice….
Pretty sure magot messiah has been that all along
Had this “duty vs. self-interest” discussion with a wound care nurse. She said they had been ordered to continue patient care during an active shooter incident. They all said “Yes, boss” and then secretly met to develop a plan for them all to be “unaware and elsewhere” if it hit the fan. I asked “What about the critical care patients?” She didn’t hesitate: “Tough. I’m not dying to save anybody and you’re an idiot for being willing to risk yourself for your disabled client”. I like her. It doesn’t hurt that she earned a Marksman badge in the Army.
I understand everyone has their limits but curious if she would have bailed on her Army buddies as fast as her clients.
Well said. Glad she’s not my critical care nurse.
“Marksman” is the lowest of three qualification ranks in the Army. Nothing to brag about there.
Berglander: Thanks for the clarification. Maybe I’m misremembering; her Army cohort was impressed.
Much like everyone hopes they die of a massive stroke or heart attack in their sleep, rather than getting Alzheimer’s and crapping their diapers in a death warehouse attended by foreigners stealing their belongings while they sit in those crap-filled diapers, screaming at the wall.
Nobody really knows how things will go, so you do your best, and hope it all works out.
If you want to be at your retreat when you need to be, go there now. Just like if you want to die in your own bed: go there now, and stay put.
Most of us want to live our lives, and we try to plan a way to maximize that.
Thinking about it may help somewhat, but in the end, you’re going to be where you are when it happens, and you’ll be out of choices before you know you’re out of choices.
It sucks, but it is what it is.
Planning may help with some things, but worrying won’t get you five more minutes on this planet.
And the Pineapple Suppository of Consequences always arrives unannounced, and unlubed.
I understand (and in many ways share) your desire for lots of privacy . . . but total isolation adds an awful lot of burdens. We have been blessed with lots of acreage and live at the end of a dead-end dirt road – but we have one neighbor. Maybe 1/3 of a mile away, can’t see/hear anything through the trees even in winter – but they’ve been a godsend. He’s been an outdoorsman all his life, and helped and befriended us. They have the keys to our place and we trust them completely. Worth far more than money.
If you can’t live at your retreat, you still need someone to check on it periodically when/if you cannot. And obviously it helps to pre-stage as much as you can there. I wouldn’t limit myself to 2-3 hours away personally, but that depends on where you live and amongst how many millions. Just keep your vehicle gassed up, have extra stabilized gas stored, and know your routes.
If you are presuming an EMP and not having a working vehicle, that’s a different ball of wax. We’re far too old to have walked or biked hundreds of miles, and even if you can handle the physical aspect, you just can’t bring much with you. I wouldn’t personally plan on/for that as my main ‘what if,’ although it’s still valuable to figure out extreme contingencies.
We come back to “Perfect is the enemy of good enough”. Compromises have to be made in order to live a normal life and maintain the back up in case the shtf. You can’t be ready for everything. Unless you’re very confident in a specific scenario, you try to cast a broad net. But in the end, the primary concern is today. I will sacrifice a certain amount of preparedness for security today. A bird in the hand as they say…
I voted with my feet long time ago, moved from renting in a big city to to renting in a small town, saving up my money to buy a rural property outside of an even smaller town. Things go slowly for a long time, then they go suddenly. All of history is replete with examples of people being right up to the brink and not understanding that they were so close.
People are really bad at understanding non linear things, exponents, etc. Chaos and social disruption are non linear. If you jump early you look crazy, even if jumping was the correct decision. Think about the fall of Afghanistan. Think about BLM riots.
Let’s try to do it with math and exponential equations instead of gut feelings and emotions. I shamelessly borrow this metaphor from Karl at market-ticker.org If I had a pond of an area of 1000 lily pads, and starting with a single pad that doubles every day, at day 5 I’m only at 32 pads and it’s 96.8% open space. I’m also only 5 days away from it being totally covered. When is it too much? Day 6 with 64 lily pads and 93.6% open space? Day 7 with 128 pads and 87.2% open space? Day 8 with 256 pads and 74.4% open space?
Think about it. At day 8 everything looks fine, plenty of open space, only minor problems. No one’s going to bug out when its 74% fine. Now it’s day 9, 512 pads, just under 50% of the pad is gone. It’s taken us 9 days to get here but we won’t even make it to day 10 because sometime during the night the pond fills up. I can make the pond 10,000 pads in size and you’d instinctively think it would take 10X as long to get there. But you’d be wrong. It takes less about 3 and a half days. Try to convince someone on day 6 when the pond has 64 pads out of ten thousand (99.36% open) that in 7 more days it will be full. They won’t believe you.
This conversation is all about how late can I wait before committing to leave. Can I do it at 95%, 99%, do I wait until it’s already happened? I want to maximize my benefits of living inside a risky societal situation up to the point where I know the decision won’t cost me should it be a bad one. How much fine do you think it is now, compared with last year or 5 years ago or 10 years ago. The power is on. The water flows from the tap. You can still watch TV or stream shows off the internet. Everything else is in some state of degradation or in the process of failure.
Please, if you are starting to have worries about it it’s your survival instincts telling you to leave now. We have those instincts because the people in the past who left ahead of danger survived and those who didn’t died. The best time to bug out was 5 years ago, to be setup, on the land, with the skills, experience and community network connections in place. The next best time is right now, because everyone else is right behind you
Very well said.
Concur, well stated theory. The whole “retreat concepts”, is just having a location to run to when things get dangerous, unstable, and not adequately habitable where you currently dwell. If you are in an already dangerous blue hive now or any larger sized population hubs your risk factors are already present that is a threat matrix problem for your safety and security as it is. Instead of the Rawles retreat idea, l a small hamlet or sleepy Towne is a good enough win to be a solid alternative. Commander dwells in a lefty city where a tranny freak murders his neighbor, has a nut job knock on his door after dark because the drapes were left open with a light on attracting problem people. If you hear sirens frequently and cops have to have swat teams and Bearcats armored vehicles, you are behind enemy lines now and at risk, no matter how many guns you own or defensive hubris one thinks they have. I say roll out now, not a wee bit later. The job, money, logistics details can be worked around and are not an impossible obstacle if you plan well and are a tough character individual. The current cultural and society trajector continues to get worse in all aspects, and a political MAGA hopium improvement to things will not happen in your lifetime time-line. Be that pioneer and strike out on your own for a better life, just elsewhere than whatever your current here and now shithole is. Stay frosty anyways.
If anyone care on YouTube A really cheesy movie from 1983 called “Massive Retaliation” is about three families that bugout to their retreat as US / Soviet tensions rise.
Kids car breaks down, issues with locals, infighting and a hilarious issue with their Commodore 64 computer.
Take a break from doom scrolling.
Just watched it, thanks. Close to standard hollywood fare but a good look at group dynamics and how they progress. Pretty good various characters along the way. From the paranoid appearance doctor to class clown neighbor and wives with issues, locals the kids come across who don’t get it and standard bureaucrat cops looking for proper papers at a traffic stop during the evac. And the always along for the ride local dumbass rednecks that after a confrontation some group members of the group dont understand you just gotta shoot early or bad thing happen later. Having to turn away people that if they know what you have WILL come to you to protect them, key word they know what you have. So a good teaching point, you have to be really strict on anyone outside of your group knowing a freaking thing or be prepared to shut them up because they will go away and tell everyone….Some good examples of prepping to do and really not do along with if you are using a reservoir for water that’s open to elements or to fallout or rednecks with crop dusters you have a major weakness. Really funny to listen when things go bad about how they should have done something months ago and no computer or software backups. Even a impressive minefield defense with complications in de-arming it as idiot members drive thru it. And the standard Hollywood touchie feelie preppers are paranoia ending with the Pope saving the day.
Yes its cheesy but overage was entertaining and useful info. I recommend it as a learning 1 1/2 hours of time, Just like “The Day After” movie ( That I loved when it came out) that this movie was a partial copy of.
Murphy will dictate circumstances.
Say I live at my safe space but today I need to go to town 50 miles away (advanced medical? fully stocked HomeDepot?). And that’s where you be when SHTF.
My rural retreat is just a half-hour away from work but the bridge between here and there collapsed when I need to boogie.
I had to move my bug-out bag out of the truck ’cause I needed the space this one time.
Maybe the roads are clear for your escape and you get a flat tire …
Any number of other scenarios living your life not on the immediate edge.
Live your life, hope for the best, prepare as reasonable, leave it to God or the fates to determine where you’ll be when you need to be “there”. No one gets out alive; few determine the manner of their exit.
When the contrails of nerve gas start descending on the masses it’s going to be hard to find a safe spot. Look up the 1972 movie ‘Rage’ with George C. Scott, filmed in S. Arizona, there is no safe spot from that kind of attack.
Lots of abandoned underground mines around that would offer some protection or become an ugly coffin of collapsed rock. In my old age I’ll just stay home with the freeze-dried food, my M1A, the GP100, some Jack Daniel’s and the dogs to see how many I can put down before they send me to that great bunker in the sky. Over/under 15?
Ditto, but with lots of Jack stacked high and brisket for the dogs. Might as well go happy.
As one set of my Grandparents fled Weimar Germany just after Kristallnacht with what little they could hide from the German Transportation Police to set up as a dock worker in NYC. From a German banker to dockworker, even then a dab of gold was the price of admission to the NYC dockworkers to feed and shelter his family.
I have a different viewpoint about when SHTF. And not being of the “oh, well If your Nuked NO PROBLEM, If you’re not NO Problem” viewpoint. Instant death is a No problem situation but there are a million or so somewhat preventable awe-*hit family suffering variants, so it IS a problem a MAN tries to protect his family from.
That said I do live pretty much where I can apply the lock to the gate and have friends I trust with my family to work with. I choose to accept lower pay than I could get working in Boston Hospitals for example.
The what IF you’re at Walmart and EMP shuts off your car? Well, I have a folding bicycle in the car. Citizen bikes with their run flat tires are pretty nice rides. Helps keep my old age spread under control. I can get home on or off the road via several routes I’ve already bicycled. Some I have to lift my bike over a fence or three and one is over a railroad bridge, but I’ve ridden all of them.
When my EMS friends are concerned about protecting their families THEN SHTF here.
Unless you have a well-built fallout shelter and months to years of supplies, or live well (we’re talking hundreds of miles) outside the likely downwind radiation plumes from likely targets, worrying about getting nuked is among the most truly pointless things you can ever do.
Which pretty well excludes most of the country east of the Mississippi, except for a tiny corner of northern Maine. People seriously worried about getting nuked have already moved to the Southern Hemisphere. Nearly everyone else is simply deluding themselves.
There are plenty of things you can do for lesser problems, but “preparing” for the aftermath of nuclear war is usually a fever dream, and/or an episode of “Doomsday Preppers”, AKA Crackpots On Parade. And locked gates don’t stop fallout.
But ROWYBS. The good news is that nuclear war is horrific, but one of the less likely problems to prepare for.
“And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? If then you cannot do a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?“
As a dedicated Survivalist since age 5, when my Father (an Air Force Officer) taught me how to use a Geiger Counter and Dosimeter, and Why, I’ve always seen the only thing that would need the ‘Mad Max” response is Nuclear War, between Any Nations. If you are prepared for That, all the other potential “End of the World” things are just Slow-Motion events that you “Play by Ear” as they unfold.
The Key Factor, IMO, is the Observation of When (not If) the ‘government’ loses Daily Control of things – i.e. the Inability to ‘collect taxes’ and be a Threat to the average, non-criminal Individual. When you can Shoot the looters, feral apes and beaners without being Arrested. That may take a while, but will be Obvious when it does.
Chud
Realist.
Nope, just a chud waiting to play out his racist fantasies.
13% is a real number. What color is your hair?
I see stormfront has entered the chat 13% of Americans have an IQ below 87 yet they make up 52% of maga voters Is that what you meant
Always go early. Several reasons – protect what you built, less traffic, more availability of last-minute items, etc.
Most importantly, if you go late, you’re not a survivor, survivalist, prepper, whatever. You’re a refugee.
And brother, being a refugee SUCKS.
Thirty years ago I took a job in a small town over two gas tanks away from the nearest golden horde. Our house was 600 yards from work, so I walked or biked daily. Over the years we developed our home into our “bugout” location. Year round stream 50 yards away. A dozen productive fruit trees – apples, pears, peaches, plums, citrus. Raised garden beds. Solar panels.
Then my sister broke her neck. We now are primary care givers of an elderly quadraplegic. Our home was ill suited for our new roles in life, so we moved to a small one story house on a couple of acres of pasture land, with no trees, clay soil, no garden, and are starting all over. I’ve planted two dozen trees in the last month, but it will take time. I keep telling myself if the world will just hold on for another 3 years, I’ll be set.
The only constant in life is that things change, and you don’t always have a say in what happens.
Calling BS.
Draw 800-mile radius circles (that’s actually two gas tanks) from the Top Ten metropolitan areas in North America on a map of the continent.
Other than Northern Alaska, the area left over is exactly nowhere between Canada and Mexico, and there probably hasn’t been any such thing since 1910, and certainly not since 1950.
Last time I tried it with even 300-mile radius circles, the pickings were pretty slim. Even ,Rawles 250-mi guidance is damned near impossible, to the point of being a risible suggestion divorced from reality.
Ain’t nobody “two gas tanks” away from the nearest golden horde, unless you thought everyone was driving a 6mpg Chevy V8 from the 1950s with a 5 gallon tank and a hole in the fuel line, except in the Arctic, Antarctica, the Amazon, or Africa, (the Four As Of Hell) each of which is its own reward, and the land there will kill you long before other people will.
Don’t believe me; get a grade school compass and a china marker, and check it out for yourself.
Until there’s a lot less gas, and a lot less people, no place is far enough from Other People, nor has been in living memory on this continent. You can avoid crowds, but you can’t escape them until most of them have starved to death. And when last I looked, they’re seldom inclined to go there quietly and peacefully.
So when planning, tick the box marked “Hordes”, not the one marked “No Hordes”.
Depends on the scenario. Argentina had a full-on collapse and people still had to go in to work. You are right to say specific criteria should be created beforehand so its a no brainer to bug out when the time comes. During the BKLM riots we had several “red lines”, hearing gun shots at any hour of the day was one. In the 5 years we had lived there at the time that had never happened once and it would have been a very good indication the very active riots downtown had moved our way.
We felt an earlier line had been crossed so we had what we planned to bug out with more staged than usual and we were in closer communication with the two other families bugging out with us to our jointly owned very well stocked retreat.
That’s the closest we ever came and given the 1/2 dozen or more panic-fests I’ve lived through like Y2K and 9-11 I’d say a sober assessment of the actual situation beats a “better to bug out early” mindset when it could cost you your job and your kids lives unnecessarily uprooted.