Urban/suburban Survival

Sgt. Art

Sgt. Art

Joined
May 21, 2005
Messages
828
Although most survival discussion revolves around surviving in a remote area I believe that one of the most probable scenerios is survival right in our own neighborhoods. Most of us will never face a remote survival situation. But if there is a break down of order, supply systems etc... We may be forced to live as the peoples of Sarjevo, Beruit, Stalingrad, Bagdad etc... If so what are the tools and skills that you would consider important for long term survival of yourself and family faced with situations where food, water, fuel, medical supplies/treatment were in extreamely short supply or non exsistant but there was still a level of government order?
 
ive played out some diferent scenarios in my head and have discussed them with my soon to be wife . looks pretty good so far , i live out in the boonies and use well water although the well needs elctricity for the pump i think a generator could handle it . all of the neibors are armed to the teeth so looters would nt be a problem i wouldnt think. creeks and rivers are close by so theres plenty around but treating all of it could be a hassle . need to stock pile more food and water though. this thread has kinda made me start thinking about it more and i believe im going to start a check list and get a little more prepared than i all ready am , just in case . this day and age there's just no telling so a little updating is now in the works:D
 
Yes.. most "SHTF" scenarios that could happen would leave us surviving in our own neighborhoods.. but the question isn't what tools and skill are most important.. they'd be the same in survival situations ranging from New York City to the middle of a swamp in red-neck land (no offense).. Obviously climate would differ. but the tools and skills needed are still the same. Those tools and skills are discussed in depth in many of the threads in these boards.

The real question is-> How would you deal with the people. How would you deal with the people that could potentially, in a time of chaos, rape steal and kill everything they see? How do you deal with the now homeless, and potentially parentless children? How do you deal with the people who can't survive in one of these situations?

Or do you deal with them at all? Do you bug out? From New York city it's only a a week or 2 hike to the Catskill mountains. Here in florida, I'm a 9 day hike away from the everglades, or a 15 days hike over the border to Georgia.

In the case of hurricane Katrina.. I would have bugged out and been gone before the Military even arrived. The filth and disease, not to mention the starvation those people in New Orleans went through is something worth missing.

Ok, so there's 2 major questions in the whole "Urban survival" thing.

#1 Do you stay? or bug out. #2 And if you stay.. how do you deal with people.
 
In such a situation the most essential skills are people skills. Winning friends and influencing people under such circumstances is the thing that will see you through. Mac
 
Best survival tool will be general health and fitness, imho. At the height of my backpacking days I was doing 25 mile days on little food. In an inpending disaster, ability to stay on the move through exhaustion would be key, i think.
 
feel sorry for all the out of shape people like me:D actually dealing with people would be my biggest concern . caoss makes people do weird things loot , rape , steal, and turn violent . the mindset of a survivalist is diferent from the normal sheeples point of view . the people who choose to look at life through rose colored glasses would be the ones to panick and make things worse for everyone else imho.on the other hand the survivalist mindset would imo be the first line weapon in a crisis.
 
HK2001 said:
#1 Do you stay? or bug out. #2 And if you stay.. how do you deal with people.
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Where I live, there's something like 2 million people between me and anything that looks like wilderness. My back is to the sea (well, one small coastal range away from the sea) and there's only a handful of land routes in and out. Plus "SHTF" around here usually means earthquakes, and earthquakes have a nasty habit of making overpasses unusable. It's entirely likely that no one will be driving anywhere.

So I long ago decided that if the SHTF, I'm staying put. No point in getting all caught up in that gridlock.

The one caveat to this is that I have several friends who fly small planes. It's possible that I could catch a ride out with them. But then, I assume they'll be busy trying to fly their own families out of here, so I'm not counting on it.

On dealing with people: The best strategy in a high-density population area such as mine is to become connected to your community. Get to know your neighbors. Do what you can to make sure your neighbors have emergency supplies at least as good as yours. After all, if you have water and the guy next door doesn't, things are going to get ugly. But if you have water and so does everyone else, then SHTF just becomes an excuse for people to have a big block party until the power comes on again. My number 1 rule for disaster preparedness is that you cannot prepare in isolation if you do not live in isolation.

Again, I'm assuming an earthquake, which is the #1 most likely disaster to befall me. All bets are off in the event of widespread civic upheaval caused by, say, ethnic groups rioting or a pandemic.

For rioting scenarios, I'd want a lever action rifle (.30-.30 is good enough for this scenario) and then I'd take up position on my roof where the rioters can see me and my rifle (this worked during the riots in LA a few years back; the only stores that were not looted and burned were the ones that had armed guards -- usually the shop owner -- on the roof).

For pandemics and other uncontainable spreading conditions, I'd want a lot of duct tape (for sealing the house) and a really good relationship with God.
 
Good points bulgron. I was in Santa Clara during the '89 quake. No where near as bad as could have been and even then, people were freaked because there was no power for a few days and no ATM's or point of sale purchases could be made.

Staying connected to your neighbors is important. It could become your circle of wagons at some point. I live at the head of a cul-de-sac so only those of us who live there have any business there.

Also general good health and the means to stay healthy are important along with good sources of communication through am-fm and even FRS. Sure it can be monitored but there are ways to communicate without giving your location away.

Obviously, substantial stores of food, water and otc medicines etc are vital along with secure storage for them and finally personal protection. We have also begun putting away N95 masks, gloves and the like for potential pandemic. Sure there will never be enough masks but in the event we have to be out and about among the masses, it gives us an extra layer of protection.

I have my RV parked in my driveway and it is alway re-stocked after every outing so I have the choice of staying or going. If I leave Dodge, it will be way ahead of everyone else.

Begin getting and staying in shape. It's free and it's the best thing for you. Take a Basic First Aid class or refresh if needed along with CPR. Go to your auto club and get maps of your area, LOCAL maps so you will have alternatives around the freeway system.

Start keeping a basic kit with you always at work and in your car. There are a few threads here that can get you started.

I made most of my prep for the urban/suburban scenario. When I'm out in the woods, the 10 essentials are about all I take as I don't go of the beaten path alone anymore.
 
Thanks for all the great responses and keep them coming. I agree that bugging out is one solution but only for short term situations. Most of us don't really have the skills to survive long term in the boonies espically with the wives, kids and significant others etc... Getting to know the people in the neighborhood will be essential. Personally its not the short term situations that really concern me its what about the long term months or years.

akabu - Great web site saw it a while back and then couldn't find it again. I was hoping someone would have it. That is the kind of situation I'm looking at. Thanks.
 
Without wanting to sound too pessimistic, I don't think many of us have the financial means nor the space to stockpile goods for more than a few months. If you are talking about years, I see an evolvement of the culture after a period of mass chaos and civil unrest.

Out of that, I envision the local government becoming small colonies of people that work at being self sustaining. I mean if one has to endure for years, then there has been a collapse of economy and order. We would basically be back to the days of the homesteader.

This would be preparations for a whole other scenario. You would need to store things to start a new beginning: tools, plows, seeds and food preservation equipment to name a few and possibly barter items if money is no longer a common rate of exchange.

This sort of heads back to the Y2K folly and I think that fizzled a lot of peoples expectations for preparing for future crisis.
 
I'm not looking at that bad a scenerio (hopeully). More like what has been seen in places like Sarejevo. I know I don't have the $$ or space for that kind of stockpiling. Nor is some remote retreat a possibility. I was looking at possible barter skills and items. How do you heat the house and cook the food with out the gas and power running. I've got some ideas, but am looking to see what others think.
 
The Balkan war was centuries in the making. Our political and economic history does not justify preparing for that situation. However...
Preparing for a couple or three weeks of loss of services would not be too costly or unjustified. Don't underestimate how much toilet water a woman will use.
 
Sgt. Art said:
I'm not looking at that bad a scenerio (hopeully). More like what has been seen in places like Sarejevo. I know I don't have the $$ or space for that kind of stockpiling. Nor is some remote retreat a possibility. I was looking at possible barter skills and items. How do you heat the house and cook the food with out the gas and power running. I've got some ideas, but am looking to see what others think.
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I never bought into the whole "civilization is going to end on Y2K" fearmongering that went on. This is probably because I work in the software industry and I knew exactly what was being done about that particular bug and I had very high confidence that it was being fixed. That said, I did gain amusement from reading Y2K survivalist literature. Some of it was a real hoot if you were in the frame of mind, "This ain't never gonna happen."

Anyway, from that reading, there were a couple of things they were suggesting you stockpile for barter goods. They were (in no particular order):

- bullets
- condoms
- toilet paper
- female hygene products

There was other stuff, but for some reason this is what stuck in my head. I might add a bunch of $10 Mora knives to the list. Just a thought.

Past that, if you're thinking about long-term civil strife such as a civil war or prolonged economic depression, then what you want is to be able to provide a good or a service that others will find useful in that situation. Some things you might want to learn about are:

- Tailor. People won't be able to just go buy a new pair of jeans any more, so being able to hand-repair, or even make, clothing for your neighbors is potentially useful and doesn't require a great deal of up-front expense to learn.

- Miller. Get yourself a heavy duty table mounted grain mill.
These are all hand-cranked, but they make some so that you can attach a motor to them via a drive belt. Get one of those, plus a car battery, solar panels to charge the battery, and an electric motor to drive the grain mill. Now you're in business when rudimentary farming takes off again, or when the UN air-drops bags of grain/corn. This will cost you thousands to get into, but requires no difficult skills to learn.

- Leatherworker. This is something everyone on this forum can appreciate. Learn how to work leather into useful, practical, but still stylish accessories such as belts, bags, saddles, and knife sheaths. Even if civilization as we know it never comes to an end, you might find this particular skill useful in your personal life. Out of everything I'm talking about here, this is the only thing that I might actually want to pursue.

- Bootmaker might fall into the leatherworker category, but I'll list it separately here. Think repairing shoes/boots.

- Tinker. In a distressed civilization, cutting instruments such as knives and axes are going to be a lot more important than they are now. Be prepared to offer sharpening services to your neighbors.

- Gunsmith. Assuming wide-scale civil war/foreign invasion, the guy who can repair the guns is going to be quite popular.

There's other stuff I can think of, but it doesn't seem relevant in the Bosnia/Iraq/Economic doom scenario that you seem interested in.
 
harpers ferry said:
The Balkan war was centuries in the making. Our political and economic history does not justify preparing for that situation.
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I suggested it in the post that I just made, but a prolonged economic depression in which all manner of services become unavailable/unaffordable is not, IMO, out of the question. This is especially true when you consider our ballooning national debt. Throw in some serious oil spikes in which the cost of energy skyrockets, and people could be back to local economies in a real hurry.

You know we don't have enough manufacturing capacity to make underwear and socks for everyone in this country, right? Imagine what happens to us if we get into some kind of a shooting match with China and suddenly the flow of all those kinds of goods gets cuts off.

Just a thought.
 
Sgt. Art said:
I'm not looking at that bad a scenerio (hopeully). More like what has been seen in places like Sarejevo. I know I don't have the $$ or space for that kind of stockpiling. Nor is some remote retreat a possibility. I was looking at possible barter skills and items. How do you heat the house and cook the food with out the gas and power running. I've got some ideas, but am looking to see what others think.
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I've always believed about 3 weeks ( YMMV) supplies will do in an urban/ suburban scenario. Have plenty of water, water containers and means to purify. Look for a local natural water source and have a means to purify. Don't forget going to the loo. It wiil be a major pain w/o water and sewer. Cook with propane or wood. Also you can use propane burners for heat. I'm sceptical that Sarajejo is coming here.
 
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