Bugging out may not be as easy as going from point A to point B. You could notice that the toughest part is obtaining everybody together and on the same page just to get to the point wherever you can bug out, this is why deform planning and communication is so necessary.
Think of it like spending the day with the family at the park, if you’ve got the whole family at the park and you’re preparing to go. You know where the car is, and you know where the exit is, but before you leave you wish to round everybody up. So what do you do? Do you search around the park looking for everybody, which results in lost time and frustration?
If you have a plan in place before hand you’ll tell everybody we are meeting here at 4:00 so you better be here you’ve got a better shot at obtaining everybody together when it’s time to go. I say a much better shot because very rarely does everybody show up when and where they’re supposed to, teenagers get distracted pretty easily. It may be a pretty lady, they don’t understand the fastest route back or their head is simply in the clouds and they lost track of time.
Your plan is just like everything else that comes with prepping, it all depends on your family makeup. We need to look at all the different possibility’s we can, and know that it probably won’t work like we expected it to.
Having everybody meet at your home would be the best case situation, everybody knows the way to get there and that is where you have all of your provides. However what do you do if your house is in the middle of a hot spot and you not only need to get out quickly, but you don’t need your family to venture into this danger zone thinking it’s the right selection.
Make sure everybody knows about an alternative rally point, and ensure that everybody knows a way to assess the situation to insure everyone seems to be on a similar place. This is vital because there won’t be cell phones or the other manner of communicating with loved ones. You’ll be primarily be sitting there waiting with your fingers crossed that everybody gets there safely, if you have a plan in place it might ease your mind alittle bit knowing that they know what to do, you just hope they do it.
Make sure that everybody understands that dangers they may faceand that a straight line isn’t always the quickest route from point A to point B. Some peoples first thought may be to jump on the highway and get to the rally point as quickly as possible, this may be great if everybody else wasn’t thinking an equivalent thing. Getting on the main road is like being in a large hose, everything flows great till somebody puts a kink in the hose. Most people are in a traffic jam and know that once you’re in the middle of it you have no alternative however to ride it out and hope for the best.
Your on your own
Make sure everybody knows different routes from where they could be to where they have to be. We are creatures of habit and typically take a similar route to work and school each day. We might have to avoid some of these areas we travel on a each day, and knowing some other ways of getting to a location could assist you avoid those routes that could be dangerous and even unpassable.
Make sure and trip this location with your family so they understand the area, talk about the different ways to get there, treat this like a fire drill and explain to everybody that a bit like at school, it’d never begin on fire, but we need to understand what to do just in case it does.
Small Kids
Some of us have small kid that may be at school or day care, ensure you know what the procedures are at that school. Who is allowed to pick that kid up if you can’t get there? What will they do if they have to move the kids to a distinct location?
These are things we need to think about now so that we aren’t franticly searching for our loved ones if one thing were to happen. There’s a reason they do fire drills as schools, the chances may be slim that a school starts on fire, however it happens, and it may be disastrous if there wasn’t a plan in place.
Teenagers
This could be the difficult part because teenagers understand everything and are invincible. If you have teenagers that drive they most likely take one route to wherever ever they go, and because they have limited expertise behind the wheel if they need to take a unique route they could easily become lost and without the use of a mobile phone to call mom and daddy, this could be a really dangerous scenario.
Getting your kids to know that sometimes everything doesn’t work out the manner we expect it to and we may got to assume on our feet is incredibly vital because it offers them the essential thinking skills necessary if everything were to go south.
Have them challenge themselves and take completely different routes to and from work and school. This will facilitate them get a much better sense of direction and a better understanding of how the neighborhood is put together. Or if you’ve got a rally point picked out, let them drive there using your gas a few times taking a few different routes.
Elderly – Disabled
If there’s somebody elderly or disabled in the family you’ll need to have a plan in place to get them if they’re somewhere other than your home. This could be you, or this could be somebody who features a better, faster route to get them and bring them to your rally point.
Whether this can be you or somebody else you or they’ll need to have the supplies that person desires on them at all times. Things don’t always go according to set up and if something takes longer than expected you’ll need to own medications or anything else that person might need.
Being away from home
Most people spend about 1/2 our day away from home, so if disaster strikes unexpectedly we’d have to get to our home just to get what we’d like to bug out. Having a bug out plan in place to get from your home, to your rally point, to your bug out location is great, however you wish a plan in place if you’re at work, at school or simply our running errands.
The odds are that if you’ve got five people that are bugging out with you, they’re not all going to be home once something happens. Everybody needs to have a personal plan to get what they need and find out as quickly as they can.
This is also the reason you must have a bug in bag, a car bug out bag or maybe just provides in your trunk, you never know when disaster can strike so covering all of your bases is imperative.
Communication could be slim to none
Depending on the case there might be no communication whatsoever to get in touch with your family, or perhaps get updated regarding the situation itself. If the grid is down that will mean no cell phones, no tv and no radio with the exception of backup power and batteries. This is why communication now is so vital, everybody must understand that they’ll be on an island and want to search out their own way of obtaining back together with the group.
In the early stages of a disaster there might still be some AM radio stations working, text messages may still be an choice, because even if the cell towers are still operating it might be not possible to make a phone call. This can be also the explanation I just got my ham radio technician’s license, because there’s a possibility I could communicate with others regarding what’s happening around me.
My family knows that if one thing terrible were to happen i might be the most effective supply of information, not just because of ham radio, because i’ll be checking each possible option I have during a disaster situation and my children probably don’t even understand what AM radio is.
When it involves ham radio, I still need to create some additional local connections and continue to learn more regarding ham radio. I’ll also continue acting on getting better equipment that will enable me an extra reach and a solar charging possibility.
Making sure that everybody knows the fundamentals like not wasting the battery life on your phone attempting to make calls because texting takes so much less power and is more possible to get through, the importance of finite resources like food, water, fuel and time and knowing that they will be responsible for their own safety if the family is separated and there’s no kind of communication.
