Urban/Suburban specific skills

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gallowglass

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Oct 19, 2005
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Maury's got me thinking about 911 style situations in urban/suburban enviroments.

L. Sprauge De Camp wrote a few fantasy/comedic novels that have been gathered into a collection called the Reluctant King. In the books, the protagonist has a few years to train before going seriously on the lamb to avoid a head-ectomy. The character trains in about everything, but his training in stealing chickens really helps him to survive. You think it would be the swordfighting or the archery, but it's the chicken stealing that gets him through. :D

I got a big kick out of that when I was a kid, but I have come to believe that in a true disaster situation in a populated (or formally populated) area that getting food and water out of vending machines ,quietly and when the power's off ,would be the equivilant of stealing chickens. Just enough calories to get you to a better place.

What other esoteric skills have you all thought might come in handy in a true disaster situation, considering that most people in the US would be in a urban or suburban enviroment when it started. Fire building and shelter construction, the staples of wilderness survival, would take a backseat to ???

Take Care,
Jeff
 
Interesting question? A few things from just observing the NO disaster, if you stayed in a urban environment for a short while. I think a lot of folks would drift off looking for someone to give them something. So waiting things out, purifying water, and trapping would be pretty simple. They are still talking about all the loose pets and the breeding spree. Plus birds and fish if you are near water. All in all I think it might be easier to survive in an empty or partially empty city. Think of all the stuff you could scrounge.
 
HT,

Your point about trapping is well taken, and I agree that a near empty city would not be that hard to survive in, with the exception of dealing with bands of predatory people.

Take Care,
Jeff
 
gallowglass said:
HT,

Your point about trapping is well taken, and I agree that a near empty city would not be that hard to survive in, with the exception of dealing with bands of predatory people.

Take Care,
Jeff
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Thats what comes to my mind. Remember in N.O. the story about a Japanese lady and her daughter in the hotel? They were tourists that got stranded there for several days, but kept their heads, scrounged all kinds of snack food and bottles of water and soda and baricaded themselves in the hotel room. They kept a low profile, and rationed their supplies, and when they saw a news crew in the street made contact with them.

The urban/suburban survival senerio would be one of low profile scrounging and hording in a hidden location. One thing many don't think about is having a good quality air rifle. Pidgions and squirrles would be plinked off without noise. Same for a good slingshot.

A hidden shelter could be made in an attic, celler or storeroom.

Otto Frank hid his family from the S.S. for a couple of years in a hidden attic. And the Polish concert pianist named Spillman hid from the nazis for years in Warsaw. The book "The Pianist" that they made the movie from is a good read.

Survival in a semi-deserted city would be easier than the boonies. More hidden shelter, more material to scavange. Less need for high powered rifles, as any action will be a close range affair. If your hideout is threatened a good .22 rifle ( with a little something on the muzzle to hush it up) will solve the problem and not be heard several blocks away.
 
Around my section of the urban landscape there are few chickens... but lots o' cats and dogs (oriental food, slurp!!). I think live traps are on sale, right now, at Harbor freight too!
Squirrels are a traditional staple that can readily be had in many places.
Gotta be careful of pigeon though many are diseased, they are basicly flying rats. (Although if things got desperate in the big city "roof rabbit" would get might tempting.)
A hand full of grass seed and a pellet gun/slingshot could net a good dinner of robins, sparrows and such (ala "4 & 20 blackbirds baked in a pie") its traditional.
CB caps in a .22 can also be relativly soundless (even more so than shorts).
Planting a few edible shrubs has always been a good "hedge" against an uncertain tomorrow (a few greens to go with that rabbit).
Enjoy!
 
Jason,

I was eating a lot of pigeon ( I'm the municipal pigeon sniper) until I found out that a huge local cheese factory was putting out drugged grain for them :barf:

It was a tasty fowl, with a less stringy consistancy than chicken. My wife was indeed mainly cooking the meat in pies out of an old LL Bean game cookbook. I was just taking skinned breasts so my time cleaning per bird was only about three minutes.

Now the local cats just feast instead.

Take care,
Jeff
 
One interesting published take on this topic is a book I read last year:

RAGNAR'S URBAN SURVIVAL: A HARD-TIMES GUIDE TO STAYING ALIVE IN THE CITY by Ragnar Benson

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/15...002-2078968-7860021?n=507846&s=books&v=glance


I'm no survival expert, but besides my own outdoor experiences, I've also read many of the seminal works on this topic - the SAS Survival Handbook, US Army Survival Manual, Greg Davenport's Wilderness Survival, etc. I mention all this because my comments on Benson's book are based as much on comparison to other survival texts as they are to my own experiences.

One of the reviewers on URBAN SURVIVAL's Amazon page remarks that this book is as much a history of urban survival as it is a 'how to' manual, and I agree. However, for someone who has a little exposure to survival topics, even a historical overview can be illuminating. For example, Benson spends time discussing past combat in urban areas, such as the siege of Leningrad during WWII and the long civil war in Lebanon, and the survival tactics citizens in those areas employed. Later, he discusses how government authorities and the military have interacted with 'survivalists' in past conflicts. He goes into enough detail to give one a sense of "Hmm, that [survival tactic] is not a bad idea..." but not enough specifics, sometimes, for one to recreate the tactic/technique, etc.

Other chapters of the book do attempt to provide step-by-step instructions on things like food storage and even what he calls 'survival nursing;' I feel less qualified to judge those sections, so I took them with a grain of salt.

All in all, I enjoyed the book for its differing perspective if nothing else. After reading many wilderness survival books, it was interesting to spend time contemplating urban survival in the midst of a collapse of authority.
 
Larning to forage in an urban/suburban setting without getting caught for looting . We are talking food and water gathering not merchandise . Lets leave ethics out beyond not taking merchandise as this is survival . Supermarkets would probably be well guarded . What about minor office buildings ? Smaller food distributors might have trucks with food in them . Any companies that make and or distribute food would have trucks with food in them . Maybe potato chips isn,t your cup of tea . They will keep you going and give you fairly easily digested calories .
 
School cafeterias would be a good source of large foodstocks. And pool cleaning supply companies would have chlorine for quick decontamination of water. A trot line put out at night and checked in the pre dawn twilight might snag some carp for dinner.

And in a real pinch, tires can be cut up to be burned for heat, messy and polluting but they would supply some light and heat.
 
This is a great thread as it is probably much more reality than running off to live in the woods. Candles, matches, sewing needles & thread, knife sharpening skills all these are barter skills and items that will have value in an urban/surburban survival setting.
 
This weekend I took my second class with Christopher Nygeres. He runs a wild edibles class in a suburb of LA called La Canada. We have gone to a big wash and along the backside of a golf course. Many of the plants that he has pointed out are common on the side of the road, growing in yards as weeds, and in the cracks on the ground. In a one mile walk around my office I can pick out pursulaine, sowthistle, and Plantain. Steve Brill runs a similar class in NY in various parks. If you can they are very worth while to take. You can play the Crazy-Guy-Looking-For-Weeds in the event you need them and people won't be as concerned about you taking thier more "tradtional stores" I'd rather eat a weed than a rat. At least I could wash it and pretend a dog didn't pee on it....:D
 
5 skills it might be good to know :
emergency bicycle repair
bypassing those dop down chain-ladder security gates ( minihacksaw?)
complete dark stairwell navigation
escape and evasion from unorginized foes

Take Care,
Jeff
 
I've often thought about this, here's a couple of things I noticed.

Streets named "Canal", "River", or etc. are almost always old run down indtrial areas. Many abandonned buildings, groves of tress, refuse etc.

Almost always if there's chain link around something, there's a cut in it somwehre, usually hidden by adjacent tress or etc, I assume kids or homeless do that.

Junk yards would be an interesting place to hide out.

I've noticed that graveyards usually have both a really old part no one visits, or some undeveloped land at the edges. Often there is no fence or the gates are open.

I used to live in an old indutrial city on Ohio, many square blocks of almost 100% abandonned buildings and houses.

Railroad right a ways, as aboce many towns and cities no longer have active rail service. Many of these rail corridors cut directly through a city avoiding roads and etc.
 
I think the most important skill is that constant subconscious inventory of everything around you. What's there, how can one use it?
 
numberthree said:
I think the most important skill is that constant subconscious inventory of everything around you. What's there, how can one use it?
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I do that all the time. What could I use that item for...hmmm...
 
lumpymike-
i've been studying wild edibles for some time now. it's a great skill to have, but you also need to have the knowledge of what's NOT edible. be sure and read steve brills commments on eating wild edibles that are found within city limits and along roadsides, as most contain high concentrations of polutants and lead.
 
Buckeye Sam said:
Using those tires for heat and so forth will give your position away. Say smoke signal.:D
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That is why you cut the tire into small chunks before you use them. The do not produce much light (or heat for that matter..) but they will do in a pinch.

Of course if one is that desperate there is always libraries. Plenty of fuel and toilet paper to be found......:D

And if one is going to have a 55 gallon water barrel under the drain spout, put some screen over it so the mosquitos don't fill it with larvae.
 
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