When most people think about a survival plan, they tend to think food and medical caches, personal bunkers, energy sources, communication equipment, and methods of self-protection as some of the core basic necessities. In truth your cache of supplies is useless if you can't get to them.
Most of us spend the majority of our time away from our homes, as such we likely will not be home when an event occurs. Do you know how you'll get home? Do you have the supplies readily available to support your travel to your home? Would you be able to find safe shelter if you can't get home? These are questions that you should be prepared to answer without much though. Yes some of these questions have simple answers, but how clearly will you be able provide solutions to these problems under duress?
During the 2011 Snowpocalypse in Chicago, I learned first hand how hard it can be get home during a crisis. Traffic was backed up worse than I have ever seen in my entire life. It took me half an hour to drive half a mile. I had water and extra clothing in my car, including a waterproof shell, and some trekking poles, but that's all. Since I've quickly added a flashlight and extra wiper fluid. But that is not enough to survive a trip home during real crisis. What if I had to ditch the car and walk home? I would have been in trouble. Though I am an experienced Adventure Racer and know how to navigate in extreme weather under extreme duress, I did not have had the proper supplies to support my 15 mile trek home, which normally would be 5 hours on a good day.
My first Google search of survival information lead me to SurvivalBlog.com which is a wonderful site put together by James Weley, Rawles. He wrote an article on just this topic, and I suggest you read it. In fact, read it now and come back and read some additional information I have. Go ahead, I'll be waiting right here for you.
The Art of Getting Home
http://www.survivalblog.com/2011/06/the_art_of_getting_home_by_sha.html
Wasn't that a great article? Or did you just pretend to read it?
My comments.
1- Build a personal survival kit now. Start small and add to it as items become available. I like JWR's kit, but I will do a bit more research before completing kit and posting the contents here, for all I know I just might mimic JWR's. I suggest that you build a few kits. Keep one each of your cars, keep one in your office, and keep one in your shoulder bag and/or on your person. One advantage of having multiple kits available is that you have that much extra supplies. This is useful if you need to replace items in your kit due to use or failure, or perhaps you can donate or barter your extra kit. By the way, survival kits make neat gifts and stocking stuffer's... what a nice way to show someone you care.
2- Print your alternative route maps. maps.google.com allows you to easily customize maps with routes and points of interest. I suggest first to add locations of places you might be able to seek shelter on the map first, and then try to plan some of your driving and walking routes with those locations in mind. If you become injured or fatigued, or run out of supplies, or if conditions worsen you might be able to seek aid and shelter at one of those locations. Be sure to include any public spaces that may offer assistance, but be cautious. You don't want to find yourself in the middle of a riot or other unfortunate situation. Also, you should not rely on the availability of aid or shelter at those locations. Right now you can only rely on yourself and what you have. For instance the location may be damaged or inaccessible, looted or abandoned.
If you don't have much time, I suggest at the minimum your print out the default (or edited) Google Maps directions for driving, walking, and bicycling. In most cases you should be able to drive or walk each route. If the event is extreme enough I'm sure you will not receive trouble for driving down a bike path if all of the roads are blocked.
I also suggest you label your maps, and make copies for to share with people involved in your survival plan. Doing so will narrow the search grid, in the case you become lost or injured and never reach your destination.
3- Expanding on instructions of sending a quick text message before you embark on your travels. I suggest adding at the least the following information. Where you are, Where you are going, your physical condition, when you plan on arriving, what labelled route you plan on taking (see section 2 above) and finally the current date and time. Do not rely on your phone to timestamp your message. Your message may be stuck in limbo for some time and delayed. I would also suggest that you consider powering off your phone. Your phone might be your only life-line, and there is no point allowing the battery in your pocket as you travel home. Likewise, in a crisis you should not be distracted by your phone. Keep your mind focused on the current task of safely getting home and also stay aware of your surroundings. Keep your phone and any supplies you have put away and out of sight. You do not want to advertise to others that you valuable supplies that they might want to liberate from you.
If possible you should maintain a charged phone through the day. This means you might have to invest in an extra phone charger, but it's best to have a full battery than a nearly depleted battery in a crisis situation.
4- I will discus vehicle preparedness in more detail later, but I wanted to mention that at the least you should ensure that you always have at least half a tank of fuel in your vehicle. The last thing you want to do is run out of fuel because of poor planning. If traffic is slow moving or at a standstill, or you find yourself having to drive as far away as possible, you will require more fuel than your normal commute home, and you may not be able to exit traffic to refuel or even find an operating fuel station.
These are very simple steps you can follow right now. Do something today. Don't wait. If you only take one step towards preparedness today, that is one additional advantage
you have tomorrow if an event were to occur.
I found this interesting and the related lunchroom conversation, but maybe the recipe should be: provide sufficient physical resources (full tank of gas, bottles of water, snack food) and use your intelligence to react to whatever situation you are in. If you work, provision a small store of physical resources near your work space then use your brain when trouble occurs!
ReplyDeleteI heard some commentators say when the power went out for an extended period of time after the recent T-storm, the cell-phone service went dead also. You might want to think about a diversity of communication channels.
ReplyDelete@Unknown #1
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments!
I agree sufficient physical resources are essential, and that intelligence should be used, but their is no harm is using that intelligence a bit early to make action plans. With a few ready made action plans, intelligence can be utilized to choose which plan to use, rather than try to figure one out on the fly. I find that sitting to a plan rather than "winging" it always works. My adventure racing team has been known to deviate from "the plan" a few times and our "winging" a few times and we paid for it.... painfully. ;) Learned my lesson. And of course their is no harm planning ahead... just the act of planning alone will give you the edge if you decide to "wing" it or have to deviate from a plan for uncontrolled reasons.
@Unknown #2
ReplyDeleteThank you for your suggestion. That is an excellent topic idea. I will write a more detailed piece about effective cell phone use during a crisis.
I think of using a cell phone during a crisis the same as using a cell phone at a public venue such as a professional sports game or festival. Such as attending a high attendance event, during a crisis cell phone service can be rendered useless. It's best to preserve your battery life by powering off your phone after you attempt to send sms messages.
While attending the Sox vs Cubs game 2 this season I had no cell phone coverage at all. I felt isolated from the outside world, and as that same terrible thunderstorm poured it's might down upon us I could not contact anyone.
A very good topic and much to comment on. Thank you Unknown #2.
I found this survival kit from Gerber with input from Bear Grylls. It seems like a pretty nice kit with a handy bag/tether. It is on sale now @ Amazon. Here is the link for anyone interested.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Gerber-31-000701-Grylls-Survival-Ultimate/dp/B004DSXC7I/ref=pd_sim_hi_7?tag=dealswoot-20
Steve I know you are trying to test out some kits so I thought this would be a good opportunity.
@Unknown Thanks! I did take a peek at that kit a few weeks back. It's not one I'd personally recommend based off of my analysis of it's contents and user reviews. I prepared a spreadsheet comparing the Amazon.com offerings, and will include it when I write up my Pocket Survival Kit review which is coming soon. Thanks for your comment!
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