The Romance of Bugging Out

It's not hard to see how survivalists and preppers are attracted to bugging out during a catestrophic event.  Heck, there's even a TV show titled, "Doomsday Bunkers"  where they have acres and acres of land in a remote location.   Hollywood has portrayed bugging out in many movies and continues to fuel the romance.  Lone Wolf characters in "Book of Eli" and "I Am Legend" make me want to be like them.  Then after the movie credits finish rolling off the screen, REALITY hits.  Dang it!

For most preppers having a Bug Out Location [BOL] just isn't an option.  First and foremost, it requires valuable resources.  Either land, a dwelling of some sort, or a very close friend or family that would be willing to accept you and your family in a SHTF situation.  Like I said,  these are very rare for most preparness minded people.

In the short term,  I have reconciled to Bugging In or Sheltering In Place in my current home.  It's a 2-story, 4 bedroom standard suburban looking house in a neighborhood of about 175 homes.  So how do you develop a close network or support group of like-minded neighbors while maintaining Operational Security [OP-SEC] and build your prepping items and skills all at the same time?

OP-SEC is paramount in this type of situation.  174 hungry neighbors could pretty much do whatever they wanted and short of a heavily armed entrenchment, you'd never be able to stop them from taking everything. The 2 biggest dangers to blow your cover are #1 - Open garage doors,  and #2 - mouthy neighbor kids that come over all the time.  Our 2 kids know what we have in general terms and it's for the case of a big snow storm or if the lights go out for a couple of days.  They also know through consistent encouragement and reminding not to tell anyone about water, food, ammo, or even the amount of toilet paper that our family has on site.  Earlier on as we got started, the mouthy kids forced us to relocate our pantry and shift our water supply to closets and other closed off rooms.  It's been over a year now, and no kid has said, "I'm coming to your house when the Zombies come!" in a long time.

Before prepping, the garage door would stay open all day on a Saturday while I was working outside.  Maybe even overnight by a mistake every now and then.  Now it's closed.  In and out.  Up and down.  That's it.  We've done it for so long now, it's just habit.  Another benefit, is that it saves money on heating and cooling too.

Lastly, I've been reviewing the lay of the land for our neighborhood.  Ingress, egress, flow of traffic, choke points, surrounding land features, sectors of fire, etc., trying to anticipate what a SHTF situation might mean for staying put.  Other ideas for security might include installing door bars in your home, planting rose bushes under the windows, knowing how to build barb wire obstacles, considering what else can be used to stop or slow entry into your home, and barricading neighborhood entery points.  Thinking and preparing now provides a greater comfort level with Sheltering In Place as the option to Bugging Out.