Monthly Archives: March 2012

Bug Out Short List

Posted on by
2

Quick, Grab Everything Important!

You’ve got less than an hour to get your family out of the house, possibly forever. The “why” really doesn’t matter; it could be a hurricane, violent civil unrest, a forest fire, flooding… But you have to get your family (including pets), some basic necessities, as many preps as possible, and GO!

This scenario can be chaotic, scary, and very stressful; you’re practically guaranteed to pack inefficiently and forget important things in the rush. And what if you’re not there to do the packing? If you’re away from the house, and your spouse and/or kids have to get things packed up and you’ll meet them somewhere?

Having your family’s own Bug Out Short List would be invaluable. Sure that scenario will still be scary and stressful, but having a prioritized, check-list in your (or their) hand will make things go much smoother and provide much needed direction and focus.

Our list is based on having a well-stocked BOB** in each vehicle already (people define and keep their BOBs in different places – we keep one in each vehicle, at all times). We own three vehicles and have three drivers; our plan (best case scenario, if all vehicles and drivers are home) is to take two of the vehicles putting half of the supplies, divided relatively evenly, in each vehicle (Repetitive & Redundant).

Our Short List

  • Locked Document Box, containing: Important Papers Notebook (including an extra copy of the Evacuation Plan), extra cash, passports, and back-up hard drive (place in primary vehicle, under driver’s seat)
  • Red Buckets (2)*
  • open Large Blue Bin and remove the MURS radios and chargers (2) (place on passenger seats). Verify the Bin contains: Volcano Stove (with propane attachments), Buddy Propane Heater, small propane bottles (4).
  • open Black Box #1: inside are several large duffle bags for packing. It also contains the soft-sided cat carrier, load Oscar (the cat) as soon as he’s found, and load cat food.
  • Blue Duffle Bag containing sleeping bags (if two vehicles: place half in another duffle bag, add extra blankets and pillows to both)
  • Bin containing tents and sleeping mats (if two vehicles: half in each)
  • Berkey Water Filter
  • Large Red First-Aid Kit
  • MRE boxes (2)
  • Tools: axe, shovels, saws, gloves, extension cords, 550 cord, drills, bolt cutters, bucket
  • OD Military Duffle #1: fill with clothes from bedroom dressers
  • OD Military Duffle #2: fill with shoes and coats
  • Car Camping Bin
  • Backpacking Bin
  • (consider Cold Weather Bin depending on time of year)
  • Black Military Boxes (2) fill with non-perishable foods from pantry, SWYE, and extra hygiene items
  • Dutch Oven and cast iron pan
  • Black Plastic Tubs (2) fill with food for travel: include sandwich stuff, snacks, fruit, yogurt, cheese, boiled eggs
  • Coolers (2) fill with meat from freezers, top with ice in zip-lock bags
  • Extra Water: 5-gallon jugs (2), extra 2-liter as space permits
  • Extra Fuel: 5-gallon jerry cans (4) and super syphons (top off vehicles with red 5-gallon cans)
  • 5-pound propane tanks (4)
  • Charcoal and lighter fluid
  • Folding chairs (6)

Is it ambitious? Yes. Does it include everything needed? We hope so. Is it too much? Not if it all fits. Does it all fit? Hard to say–no we haven’t fully tested it (yes, I know we need to – but what a pain in the butt…). If we get a truck in the coming year that’ll help a lot, but we don’t have one yet; we’ve also talked about getting a trailer, but again don’t have one.

Make a Short List for your family. It doesn’t cost anything, just some time. Take that time now so you’ll be more prepared for that situation where you don’t have much time. It won’t be perfect, but at least you’ll have a place to start.

(Friday: What We Did This Week To Prep)

* In my post Out With The Old… – Our Annual Rotation I mentioned our Red Buckets, they are two 5-gallon red buckets with orange gamma lids (I wanted something that would stand out). They are each stocked with non-perishable foods, eating utensils, a mess kit, and some hygiene supplies. Our goal is to use them in conjunction with the BOBs to add additional survival time (in terms of more food equals more days).

**For my list of abbreviations and other information, open the above ‘Check Here…’ page tab.

The Annual Rotation

Posted on by
6

Out With The Old…

The beginning of March is our family’s Annual Rotation (okay, this is the first annual rotation – but it will be this time each year, probably). This is when we go through all our preps and rotate, replace, and update as needed. We decided on March because it’s a relatively slow time of year, there aren’t any holidays (or birthdays) that require extra money, gardens haven’t gone in yet, and maybe there’s even a tax return to help add a couple of new prep items that we’ve wanted.

Here’s our Annual Rotation list to rotate, replace, update, and/or review:

  • BOB** food: We don’t rotate MREs or freeze-dried stuff every year, but peanut butter, power bars, tuna, snacks, etc. all get replaced with new. The old goes to (the front of) our pantry.
  • Batteries: in BOB, car and house flashlights, and smoke alarms and CO2 detectors
  • Evacuation/Bug-Out Documentation: Check phone numbers, maps, and routes. Review plan with family. New photos of kids. Ensure ALL copies of evacuation documentation get updated.
  • EDC wallet contact card
  • Short List (a check-list of items we’d quickly grab if we had to bug-out with little notice – more about Short Lists on Wednesday*)
  • Red Buckets (non-perishable food in red 5-gallon buckets, with orange gamma lids, pre-stocked to be quickly grabbed to supplement BOBs, also part of our Short List)
  • Flash drives in BOBs with home video inventory and PDF resources
  • SWYE: ensure inventory is accurate

In addition we do our quarterly review of stuff at this time:

  • Generator: run briefly to test
  • Extra car keys: check to make sure key in hidden magnetic box is still there
  • Furnace filter: replace (not a prepper thing, but needs to be done regularly)

Think of any other things you keep in your preps, but don’t use very regularly, such as:

  • Chainsaw (or other small gasoline powered tools): clean, inspect, and run briefly to test
  • Firearms: ensure cleaned and oiled
  • Firearm’s magazines: it’s a good idea to keep about half of your primary magazines loaded (to about 80% capacity); then each year change over and use the other half (this will help maximize the follower spring’s life)

One thing that isn’t listed above, is our backup gasoline. Gasoline, with stabilizers, can last one to two years. We stagger ours so it doesn’t all have to be rotated at the same time (keep accurate records).

If you’re like us, you’re busy and life is hectic. We tend to forget about our faithful preps that just sit, waiting, in case we need them. And yes, it’s a hassle to replace and update things – but you’re doing this because you believe it’s important and necessary, remember? So make your own list(s), track the age of the perishable items, and rotate to keep your preps fresh and ready. (Minor confession: we’re not done with all of this yet, but we’re working on it…)

(Wednesday: *Quick, Grab Everything Important!)

**For my list of abbreviations and other information, open the above ‘Check Here…’ page tab.

What We Did This Week To Prep 3/2/12

Posted on by
2

This week Ryan and Chanse built a T-bar trellis for the raspberries. Last year was the raspberries first year so, of course, there was a lot of growth–with shoots coming up all over–but very little fruit. This year we plan to trellis them, over wires connected to the T-bars, to keep them more organized and maximize the space. We’re going to allow them to spread out some more, but at their perimeters I had the boys bury pieces of plywood (vertically 15 inches deep) to keep them from getting out of their allotted space. Hopefully, this the raspberries second year, we’ll get a good harvest.

I borrowed a truck from a friend (can’t wait to get our own, it’ll make these jobs much easier) and returned to the Landfill Compost Factory. The first day Ryan and I got two cubic yards of fine compost (I describe it as ‘fluffy dirt’). The following day I went back, by myself (Ryan started track practice), and got another two cubic yards, this time of the coarse compost (it’s more like slightly composted mulch). Between the two days we added about five inches of new compost to the garden areas, both front and back; it’ll have about three months to ‘settle in’ before we plant into it in June. The soil in this area was initially just clay and rock with about an inch of topsoil, so hopefully the soil improvements we’ve made the last couple of years will pay off.

Sarah and I finally made time to get together and finalize our seed order. Sarah had mapped the garden area, labeling what would go where, to make efficient use of the space available. As mentioned, last year was our first real garden and we had deliberately kept it smaller (and only had limited success); this year we’ll be planting about twice as much space. After looking at her garden map and making a few additions to the list, we got our seeds ordered. Ryan and I will build the greenhouse in the next couple of weeks.

What did you do?

(Monday: What Bridges?)