If all hell broke loose right now, what would you do?

[ryanlm09]

Ok, in the back roads of East Texas, where I live, basically every house you see deep in the woods is like a mini military base. I even know people who utilize motion sensor cameras and thermal imaging around here. Many of these people are very secluded, sometimes even the county roads they live on are still dirt and don't show up on maps. Now, where I live is closer to civilization but our arsenal is close at hand. There is also a big rodeo arena behind the house just in case we needed some place big for protection. If all else fails, I would go to a big city, fight my way through the hoards and hole up in a big corporate building, maybe one in Dallas. Finding guns is not a problem. In fact, my neighbor just bought an AR for recreational use (aka hog hunting).

[Dr. Hatchet]

I'd be pissed, stuck in the southwest part of my city is still awhile to get out, I dont have a gun here nor a badass weapon at all, I'd guess I would try to wait awhile and get to my dad, me and him have plans for zombies or just riots but we need to update them abit.

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

Ok, in the back roads of East Texas, where I live, basically every house you see deep in the woods is like a mini military base. I even know people who utilize motion sensor cameras and thermal imaging around here. Many of these people are very secluded, sometimes even the county roads they live on are still dirt and don't show up on maps. Now, where I live is closer to civilization but our arsenal is close at hand. There is also a big rodeo arena behind the house just in case we needed some place big for protection. If all else fails, I would go to a big city, fight my way through the hoards and hole up in a big corporate building, maybe one in Dallas. Finding guns is not a problem. In fact, my neighbor just bought an AR for recreational use (aka hog hunting).

LOL.. Ryan thanks for posting this. The AR for "Recreational" use was pretty funny.

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

I'd be pissed, stuck in the southwest part of my city is still awhile to get out, I dont have a gun here nor a badass weapon at all, I'd guess I would try to wait awhile and get to my dad, me and him have plans for zombies or just riots but we need to update them abit.

DOC,

What's the SW part of your city look like? There has to be something you can use in your home or car or some nice place to rabbit yourself away. Heck, a tire iron is a pretty nasty weapon.
What are you and your dad's plans?

[Grognaurd]

Ok, in the back roads of East Texas, where I live, basically every house you see deep in the woods is like a mini military base. I even know people who utilize motion sensor cameras and thermal imaging around here. Many of these people are very secluded, sometimes even the county roads they live on are still dirt and don't show up on maps. Now, where I live is closer to civilization but our arsenal is close at hand. There is also a big rodeo arena behind the house just in case we needed some place big for protection. If all else fails, I would go to a big city, fight my way through the hoards and hole up in a big corporate building, maybe one in Dallas. Finding guns is not a problem. In fact, my neighbor just bought an AR for recreational use (aka hog hunting).

Might need the Davy Crockett for some of dem picks. An AR15 is just going to piss them off LOL

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

Arthur,

You know I was thinking about my AK47.. Grizzly Adams line when I read that! I was so waiting on you to catch that. You let me down man. ROFL.

[Grognaurd]

Sorry, CB. I did not mean to leave you out. I think it is all part of the same running joke. Kinda like "stone soup" Put a stone in some boiling water and when some one asks what your doing say you are making stone soup. Then someone, says you know what would go good in there, some salt. Then someone brings some carrots, etc. Pretty soon it is an awesome soup with everyone contributing a little.

[Nullifier]

DOC,

What's the SW part of your city look like? There has to be something you can use in your home or car or some nice place to rabbit yourself away. Heck, a tire iron is a pretty nasty weapon.
What are you and your dad's plans?

Agreed, a person's situation is never hopeless, most people get into a tizzy when the subject of "Survival" comes up, you just need someone with a survival mindset to take a look around, every item has at least 2 uses, eg, a broom handle makes an excellent thrusting weapon & of coarse it doesn't have to all be about weapons & self defence, if you're really clever like me you can grow food on a concrete slab.

Regarding the bug-out I've wanted to post this next bit for some time & this thread seems as good as any where else to post it, this was from a friend, posted on a survival forum some time ago, so I can't take any credit for it, although I strongly disagree with hit comments regarding weeds, not meant in anyway to undermine anyone's bug-out plans just to emphasize that if you have no fixed place to go, you have no plan :

If your survival strategy is to jump in your camper van at the first sign of trouble and drive out to a remote location in the mountains where you will survive by foraging, fishing and boiling tree bark for soup, you have no strategy.

Bugout is desperation unless you have a fixed prepared retreat to bugout to.

Anybody who talks about living off the land has probably never tried to live off the land. It's REALLY hard. There are no gas stations out there, so your fuel you carry will likely run out within a week, meaning your temporary bugout location will become your permanent bugout location when your gas gauge hits empty. If you plan on surviving on the calories you get from fishing and foraging, you've probably never spent an entire day fishing without catching anything or foraging for weeds that provide almost no energy content and have to be boiled for hours to be edible - mind you, your caloric requirements will be severely increased by walking miles looking for food and hiking up and down through the woods. Ever increasing demands with ever decreasing gains, soon you won't have the strength to get up in the morning to go looking for an uncertain return in food that may or may not be just waiting out there for you to find it.

Now remember that there will be millions of other misguided a**holes like yourselves trying to live out their meticulously visualized Davy Crockett fantasy at the same time all around you. In about a week, all the fish will be fished out, the game will be hunted out and they will start to strip the bark off the trees. About a month later, when real hunger sets in, it will occur to people that the only reliable source of protein out there is human flesh and the most reliable source of food and supplies is at hand by stealing and robbing any of the other hundred thousand fools out there. In two months, the landscape will be stripped bare from uncontrolled forest fires and human occupation, stinking from untreated and unburied sewage and littered with offal consisting of the less edible parts of the human frame. Mind you, all of this is the upbeat feelgood hit of the summer Frank Capra prelude to when things start to get really bad for the buggees amidst their bugouts.

If you want to know about the bugout, read some books about the Ukrainian famine.

The wilderness will be overrun with millions of people who think it's a clever idea that will enable them to survive which "other people" will not take advantage of.

The "bugout" is a one way road to oblivion

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

Nullifier,

I KNOW I don't know how to live off the land. That was a pretty good read. Thanks for sharing

[Nullifier]

Nullifier,

I KNOW I don't know how to live off the land. That was a pretty good read. Thanks for sharing

no problem, but as I said a person's situation is never hopeless, My own personal view, if you don't have a place to bug out to, stay put, use what local resources you can find/gather, you are more likely to survive in YOUR environment after all no outsider knows your neighborhood like you do vis a vis.
Start by taking note of your surroundings, make a reference map of where any fruit bearing trees are, I'm lucky in a few ways, I have a friend who cycles 60 miles (100kms) a day for fitness so I pumped him for his knowledge on all the fruit trees growing alongside the roads in the district, also where I live, I have an avenue of about 50 Oriental white oaks, low in tannins they also drop acorns every 6 months & a creek about 50 ft from my door, home to ducks when in season, I've never bothered them, no need to, would rather encourage their return & reproduction.

Where you are i'd guess you'd have a pretty good climate for growing food, not being intimate with the locale, I'd guess you would even get an extended growing season, but if you have to you can grow food on a high rise roof top, with nothing but layers of sticks, the larger ones down first, then small etc, then you dump whatever soil (from pot plants) is to hand on top & go (grow) from there, me, I wouldn't grow the food in the pots as the soil will be somewhat diseased, devoid of micro organism & all that good stuff, potted plants in public places tend to be treated like trash cans by people stuffing all manner of crap in them including cigarette butts & half drunk coffee etc, so using the layered stick method (hugelkultur or Mound Culture) will revitalize the soil in time.

I know for a fact it works, I've done it on grass lawn, corrugated Iron & concrete slabs, if you're interested in more look up no dig gardens, raised bed gardens & hugelkulture.

You only need to out live the Nongs that did nothing at all to prepare, after that the world is just one big supermarket except that the check out chicks, store manager & security guards have "gone home"

Most people live from pay check to pay check, after a collapse in a fortnight they are going to be really hungry, in a month they'll have their neighbors over for Dinner - literally, so if the best you can manage is a pantry with 6 weeks worth of food, you're already ahead of the curve.

I can't stress this enough TAKE EVERYTHING, LEAVE NOTHING, post collapse, once it's gone it's gone, the clothes you have may be the only ones you will ever have, so that last box of soap powder you so disdainfully looked at in that looted supermarket is going keep those clothes in usable condition, those fire extinguishers you kept passing as you searched through the adjoining apartment blocks, may just stop your home from burning down.

Still even a looted supermarket is going to offer up a lot of useful items, most have a little home & garden & auto section with buckets, jute twine, seeds, weed killer, liquid fertilizer, batteries, tools etc & people tend to focus on their immediate needs, so they are going to bypass those packets of seeds, buckets & all manner of useful stuff & head straight for the canned food, if you're really lucky they won't take any "packet" foods that really need preparation, like flour, pasta & rice & as mentioned in WA, sooner or later mice & rats will get at it, so grab it first, Zip Firelighters are a good substitute for Hexamine Tablets to cook it all on a camp stove.

remember, everything has at least 2 uses & Pillow cases make excellent "Loot Sacks"