I am no expert on such things but I am not uninformed either. Today me and a bunch of others got a case of The Hershey Squirts in the comment section of The Z Blog. Someone was going on about the impending fall of civilization and advised everyone to get out of the cities because living there in the days ahead is “going to be a death sentence”. The noggers will all chimp out and burn the cities down, the commies will be executing people in the streets, the starving zombies would be rampaging everywhere…in short the SHTF is upon us and city dwellers are all DOOOOOMED.
And you can avoid all that by hauling stakes up and going out to the country! Build a little cottage, plant a garden, maybe have some chickens and livestock… and watch the lunatics in the cities burn from a safe distance.
I dropped the bomb on them: wherever you can go, others can follow. If you have food, water and supplies in a SHTF scenario - you will become a target and getting away in the countryside will be no escape. In fact, if civilization falls, and the cities start to starve… everyone and his dog will be heading out. How many rural preppers can guard their families, homes, gardens and livestock from determined thieves? Think, for a second, about the tactics required for that. Is that realistic for most of us? The tactics of bugging out may actually be worse than hunkering down. Lot a folks didn’t like that one single bit!
Riding out a disruption may not necessarily be a death sentence in the big city. I am thinking of the “roof top Koreans” during a black race riot: when the blacks showed up to chimp out in their neighborhoods… the Koreans shot them. Blacks stopped going into those areas immediately. In cities, the potential enemies are closer, but so are allies too. Assets might be easier to guard and defend too.
Shelter in place? Or bug out? I suppose it depends on where you buy out to….?
My plan is to get out of the city, with the understanding that even out in the country, I'll need to be part of a group of like-minded families within a geographical area small enough to lend itself to mutual support. Even if I don't have my own rural property in a SHTF scenario, I have several family members who do, and know they will need more trusted eyes, ears, firearms, and strong backs.
ReplyDeleteAnyone hoping to be the individualist with just himself and possible family trying to guard a homestead and do everything else they'll need to do to survive, is probably going to be picked off pretty early.
There is an author mentioned on Bayourenaissanceman's blog in years past from Argentina. When they went pop in the early 90's he said the farmers were the first to go, and they went ugly. Also, read the pdf Farmers at War, about the Rhodesians in the 70's and 80's.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if going full Vlad is coming to a town near you....
Face it; not everyone can move "to the country." Even if you could, you'd be "suspect" if anything went south there. My take; make your stand WHERE you stand, unless your neighborhood's in the dumper already. My situation's not ideal, but it's a hell of a lot better than what others have to work with. I know my neighbors. I know my town. I know the outback beyond my town. If I move "to the country," I'm playing catchup ball from the get-go. Besides, where I live people have been putting up with politicians trying to commie out the state for so long, they've had enough. It's my belief that the pushback is going to begin in places like this.
ReplyDeleteI’m with you Pete, and if it ever comes to it, one place is as good as another to die if your number’s up. And, if it ever comes to it… I want to take as many of my rivals with me when I go…
DeleteI’m with you Pete, and if it ever comes to it, one place is as good as another to die if your number’s up. And, if it ever comes to it… I want to take as many of my rivals with me when I go…
DeleteI’m with you Pete, and if it ever comes to it, one place is as good as another to die if your number’s up. And, if it ever comes to it… I want to take as many of my rivals with me when I go…
DeleteNo guarantees, and nobody can predict the future. For my money, living in the country, right now, is the best bet. Trouble will start in the cities (already has). Might spread to me. might not.
ReplyDeleteI'm too old to run, and I wouldn't feel like it anyway. This is my house, my possessions and my place of being. If someone wants to mess with me, so be it. They will find out that I can be one cranky old bastard.
ReplyDeleteREVEREND!
Delete75% of the time shelter-in-place is the right answer. That is where all of your support system is.
ReplyDeletehttp://duncanlong.com/science-fiction-fantasy-short-stories/backpack.htm is a good primer for this kind of thing.
If you move to "the country" in the 11th hour, you better be bringing something awesome with you if you don't fall into the women-and-children category.
I'm with Neon Madman. I'm 67 and my wife and I are too old to bug out. Luckily, I'm friends with my neighbors and most of them are pretty well prepared to weather the storm. Or at least as well as anyone can be in the 'burbs. We're all pretty low key preppers and look out for each other.....
ReplyDeleteLike everything else, it depends on the situation. A lot of good points made here about having neighbors and surroundings you know. Relocating out of the blue without have made plans could potentially put one on the equivalent of the refugee list.
ReplyDeleteWe are New Home now. If everything holds together for a few years, we will most likely move. If everything does not hold together, I am reasonably certain we are where God needs us to be right now.
I'm with Neon and taminator; all my stuff is here, and there's just too much to move unless I buy a surplus 5 ton cargo truck. The wife and I are too old to run. We'll make our stand right here until we run out of food, bullets, or luck.
ReplyDeleteI have been reading a few survivalist blogs over the years and one of the common threads is that you need to move "...more than a tank of gas away from any city."
ReplyDeleteYeah. Right.
That eliminates 4/5 of the country, and the rest that's left over is practically uninhabitable - at least not by city people.
Leaving this place, I am too old to be anything but a refugee. I will hunker in place and take my chances.
Ride out a hurricane in Florida, then live through the aftermath. I'm somewhat familiar with this, having lived in Florida for a while.
ReplyDelete1. Some genius of a talking head announces that a hurricane is building up in the gulf of Mexico. After that, prime time TV viewing will be interrupted by talking head hurricane announcements consisting of two imbeciles repeating variants of the same lines - we're keeping a close eye on it, and we don't want it to go inland.
2. The hurricane hits. Lines form at every single store and lumber yard in the area where the unprepared buy food, liquor, water, and everything else they should have had three months ago. Me, I stocked up well before hurricane season.
3. Mandatory evacuation is ordered. Don't answer your door. Put up your sign - YOU LOOT, WE SHOOT!.
3a. If you do evacuate, your home will be looted and the authorities will not allow you to return to your home until they are good and ready. You might sit outside your neighborhood for a week or more.
4. Put up plywood over your windows, sandbags against the doors. Keep your generator inside your garage. You do have a generator, right?
5. No power, no phone, no cable. Ride it out.
6. The next morning you'll be waiting for the water to recede. When it does, start the clean up process. The things to be wary of are electric lines that are down but still hot, displaced fauna ('gators and snakes, mainly), 4WD pickup trucks with men looking for work, and the government. Out of all these, the government is the worst.
7. You'll get looters the first night. They want your generator, your food, and maybe more. I'd advise one in the air, but that's just me. If you demonstrate that you're armed, they'll leave. Who wants to get shot?
8. Fun's over. Return to normal in under a week.
Now then. That's survival. If the SHTF as badly as some of these self-styled prophets say it will, whatever you've got, you've got. Usually you're better off alone. Should your home be destroyed, collect what you can and head for your alternate home, where ever that may be. Until then, stay at home.
If things in urban areas go south far enough and fast enough then a lot of the parasites will not survive long enough to filter out into rural America to pillage and loot. But if the decline is drawn out over time then you can be utterly certain that the two legged animals WILL start making forays into the sticks...and they will come armed and feral. If you are within a hundred miles of a major metropolitan area you will NOT be safe. Beyond that maybe....maybe not.
ReplyDelete...which means you are not safe - full stop.
DeleteLook at any map of the USA. There are almost no places more than 100 miles from any city - especially east of the Missouri river or west of the Sierra/Cascades. The only places left over are uninhabitable places like the desert basin area of Northern Nevada, or the high deserts of the four corners region and Wyoming. Good luck with that. The people living in small pockets like the Michigan UP or Northern Wisconsin, might have something to say about your invading their territory. The same is true of the Dakota's. The Sioux haven't forgotten Little Big Horn.
100% agree with Mad Jack. Rode out hurricane Harvey without a problem at home. Was able to join the community to help those whose house got flooded. Every June we start all over with the hurricane and store preps. Oh, we're about 20miles as the crow flys from the Gulf of Mexico....
ReplyDelete