Oh dear, it finally
happened. Some jackass nuked half a dozen major cities simultaneously, the food
and petroleum supply has been disrupted, there is a plague that makes the Black
Death look like a head cold and we can’t fight it, or Mike Tyson is in an
elevator with you. Whatever it may be, it is time to haul ass in a big way, and
you have a long way to go. This isn’t just getting home due to a bad hair day,
this is Bosnia for a Croat or Rwanda for a Hutu time. It is time to “Run
Forrest, run!” or “Run Luke, run!” depending on how grandiose your self image
is.
When you go you know that
travel may be uncertain. There may be roadblocks as is routine in rural Africa
when there is one of their periodic disease outbreaks, there may be civil
unrest like the Rodney King riots, there may be martial law declared so you
can’t use the roads. Any way you slice it you have to maximize the chances of
getting yourself and your family safely to safety, and this may involve
transition from wheels to feet in order to get there.
Before you can even
consider this level of planning you need to consider the goal. If you wish to
go to Grandma’s farm 300 miles away, you need not one plan, or two plans, you
need several alternates. What takes 5 hours by highway may take weeks with a
family in tow on foot. Write down the plans in a notebook and have the
appropriate maps. If you catch some Apache’s arrow, the rest of the family will
still need to make it there if they can.
Consider the size of your
family and their ages. This will be a major indicator of what needs to happen
with regards to provisions.
Never try to carry any more
than 50-60 pounds per healthy adult male, and never try to go 25-35 pounds per
woman or teen.
Always plan for the worst. If you have 3 kids and a wife make every plan as
though it would be made over land without roads and carrying at least one
member. Figure that if you can go 15 miles a day with a family on foot, you are
really doing well, so 300 miles equals a minimum of 20 days of travel, with a
realistic expectation being 30 days. And an angry, dirty, whining, X Box
withdrawal group of unhappy campers they will be.
This list is a continuation
of the above BOB lists. The first two lists were just for a single person. Do
the math. Multiply where you need to, more tents, ponchos, etc. Figure a roll
of toilet paper lasts an adult male a week when he eats regularly, so multiply
rolls times people times weeks. Family of five going 300 miles? 5 people X 4
weeks is twenty rolls of paper, which is a lot of volume, so everyone carries
their own TP in their personal ruck. Another thing, get the roughest TP you can
get. It wipes off the poop better, it stores better, and the women won’t use as
much.
½ a cup of dried rice is equal to roughly 1 ½ cups of
cooked rice. That is a lot
of rice per person, so no one should be very hungry.
Figure a family of five
eating twice a day is five cups a day times thirty days
travel is 150 cups of rice.
With 16 cups per gallon two 5 gallon containers should
suffice for a month’s
travel. Get PVC buckets with pour spout lids.
Beans.
Rice and beans twice a day for a month will cool ardor
and may lead to acts of
violence, but you will be pleased to see that they have
plenty of energy to
argue, since rice and beans will provide almost all the
nutrients a body needs.
The question is, “How much of beans do we carry?” If you plan on canned
beans figure 60 eight to twelve ounce cans. If you get
dried beans, figure ¾ a
cup dried volume per meal, or a little over 3 gallons of
dried beans. The
drawback to dried beans is that they have to be soaked
for 24 hours, so you will
have to start soaking beans 24 hours in advance of each
meal which is a pain.
While dried beans are better in the long run because the
excess can be planted
at your destination come warm weather, you may wish to
opt for canned.
Fat.
Get a two gallon jug of Crisco. You will need
it in order to cook wild game which is
always extremely lean meat. You may wish
to get a three pound block of lard
instead.
Lard would actually be better since it is a solid and can’t leak. It also
tastes
better, and takes up less space.
Salt.
Carry a pound box of iodized salt. You will use it at
your destination or for barter. Ever wonder
where salt comes from? It most likely isn’t a local
product. You will be sweating
a lot on this trip, so you will need salt.
Meat.
This will be provided by Mother Nature. Do you know the
Iroquois word for bad
hunter? Vegetarian.
18. A sewing kit. A good all purpose emergency
sewing kit will weigh only a few ounces and take up less space than a pack of
cards. It is good not only for suturing clothes, but skin as well in a pinch.
Get one and a few extra buttons.
19. Gas mask. A gas mask, better called a protective mask, may be something an
individual may consider not carrying at all. Protective masks are good for
filtering out nuclear, biological, and chemical threats.
Lets talk about the three NBC scenarios.
Nuclear
They work best against a nuclear threat where they will act to keep radioactive
dust out of your lungs. Since an area that has been bombed will lose most of
its danger due to fallout in days, hours if there is a strong rain, this mask
will be of limited usefulness. In fact, this degree of protection can be
approxamated by breathing through a wet rag, and an almost identical degree of
protection can be given by a cannister type painter's mask. A promaks is a good
thing to have in this instance, but the remotenet possibility of an nuclear
attack along with the extremely remopte chance of your encountering it may not
justify the purchase of this item.
Chemical
Chemical warfare agents are difficult to make, transport, and employ. They just
plain old don't work very well, and as a result it is almost an impossibility
that even soldiers in a combat zone will ever encounter them much less a
civilian.. A good quality mask will protect you from inhalation of toxic fumes
for several hours to several days. This author uses his M17A1 principly when
using insecticide. It doesn't get much use otherwise, and it isn't expected to.
Biological
In the event of a natural or man made plague a quality pro mask will provide
excellent protection. Virses cannot easily pass through, bacteria certainly
cannot at all. The problem here is that most likely by the time you discover
there is a danger of infection, it is too late to don your pro mask.
The problem with pro masks is that they provide temporary protection. You can't
live in one, so you must leave the area. Another problem is that if you have a
family you may be able to protect your adult and young adult members, but
infants can only be protected by “Gas Tents” that use battery powered
filtrations systems, and retail at over $400 each.
A good source for these items is www.APPROVEDGASMASKS.com
and www.ASOD.org This is
another place where expensive most likely means good quality. Don't skimp if
you buy one of these, it is a false economy.
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