If you were ever to have to leave the security of your home because of threats that can not be avoided, like wildfires, floods, or your home has become damaged and uninhabitable then it will be time to bug out. For more information on the pros and cons of bugging out and why you may or may not want to, check out my article: Bug In or Bug Out – A Reality Check
This article is Step #2 of my series, Practical Prepping For Beginners: A No-Nonsense Quick Start Guide, if you haven’t read Step #1 check it out here.
There are 6 Steps to making a Bug Out Plan:
- Threat Assessment
- Determine Rally Points
- Choose Your Bug Out Destinations
- Plan How to Get To Those Destinations
- Determine How Long It Will Take To Get To Your Bug Out Location
- Bug Out Location Assessment
An Introduction To Bug Out Plans
A Bug Out Plan will be unique to you and your family or groups situation. It can and will most likely be very different than that of even your neighbors. Where you live, work, where your kids go to school, and where you plan to bug out to, are all factors that will dictate your specific Bug Out Plan. If you live in a big city your concerns are going to be much different than someone who lives in a small rural town of 3500.
Before you ever build a bug out bag, you need to know why you need one, who it is for, how far will it need to take you. The more time and energy you put into the planning process the greater the chance of executing a successful bug out.
Step #1 – Threat Assessment
The first thing that you need to do is to determine what threats you may encounter that would require you to leave your home. This will vary a lot depending on your location. Although there are universal threats that may affect most everyone like a house fire or power outage, many places have natural threats that are often times limited to geographic regions like hurricanes, blizzards, and earthquakes.
For many of the following examples, I will be using the United States and North America, only because I am from the United States and am most familiar with the threats and natural disasters of these regions.
Most Common Natural Disasters By Region
WEST COAST –Earthquakes, Wildfires, Volcanos, Tsunamis, Landslides
THE ROCKY’S –Earthquakes, Wildfires, Winter Storms
MIDWEST –Tornadoes, Earthquakes, Wildfires
SOUTH/SOUTHEAST –Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Landslides, Earthquakes
NEW ENGLAND –Hurricanes, Winter Storms
Other than winter storms, most of these may require you to evacuate or bug out. If you have specific threats that you are preparing for there are three things that you need to do: Identify threats that are most likely to affect you. Assess their impacts on your specific family situation and make a plan to mitigate those impacts or to bug out.
Step #2 – Determine Rally Points
When an event occurs those in your family or group will want to meet up before departing for your bug out location. The most ideal place to meet up first is your home. More than likely your bug out bag/kit and bug out vehicle are at your home. There you can perform an assessment and determine if you indeed need to bug out or shelter in place. Besides your home, you should have at least two other rally points.
If you all are unable to make it back home you should have an alternate rally point that is close to your home but outside of any “danger zones”, the danger zone should have been defined in your Threat Assessment phase. This location will most likely be outside of your neighborhood. The only exception is in the event of a house fire your rally point could be the neighbor across the street or just down the road at a nearby park.
Your third rally point should be well beyond any perceived danger zones but still within easy walking distance for all in your family or group.
When choosing a rally point it’s important to be very specific with the actual meeting point. It shouldn’t just be “meet at the West Brook Park”, you need to say “we will meet at the West Brook Park at shelter house #3 at the northwest corner of the park”.
Step #3 – Choose Your Bug Out Destinations
When choosing a Bug Out location there is a lot to take into consideration. The main focus should be on the fundamentals. Is there shelter, access to clean water and food there? Don’t fall for the survivalist idea of bugging out to the woods and living off the land, unless you have a lot of knowledge and experience in bushcraft, and I mean A LOT of experience.
As with choosing rally points, you should find three different
Having bug out locations that you know are ready to provide shelter and safety is a real plus. Even better is to have some of your own supplies stashed at that location. This will allow for resupply if you need to keep moving to a secondary bug out location and will make you less of a burden to your hosts. On that note, if you have a location like one of these, make sure that they know you may just show up one day with little or no notice.
Step #4 – Plan How To Get To Those Destinations
This is the part that you have been preparing for, now you need to get from point A to point B. This is where the rubber meets the road. The ideal plan is to use a vehicle and drive to your bug out location but this may not necessarily be a possibility This should be your first choice if it’s possible.
Bug Out Vehicle
In most cases, your vehicle will play an important part in your overall preparedness plan and most likely play a major role in your bug out plan. We spend a lot of time in our vehicles and most of us don’t even have emergency equipment to handle basic roadside emergencies. Do you know if your spare tire is full of air? Do you know if your car even has a spare tire? Do you have jumper cables? How about roadmaps? First aid kit? You need to get your vehicle ready to take care of you on a daily basis and then it will be ready for you if you ever need to bug out.
Your bug out vehicle doesn’t need to be anything special but depending on your situation, a four-wheel drive or all-wheel drive vehicle will give you some advantages. Having any vehicle will allow you to carry more food, water, and gear. Plus you will get to your destination more quickly which means spending less time in the elements, this will translate to less chance of injuries too.
Your bug out vehicle needs to be ready to go at all times. This means keeping up on maintenance, keeping the fuel topped off and making sure it has the capability to make it to your destination. This is absolutely imperative if you have someone in your family or group that is very young, old or disabled, as this may be your only travel option. In this situation you will have to bug in or drive out.
Walking
Going on foot should always be a last resort but then you have no other options, then you better be ready. What does it mean to be ready to bug out on foot? Footwear and foot care. Having the right footwear is important. You need to have a pair of hiking shoes or boots that have been broken in and ready to cover the distance of your bug out route. Why hiking type footwear? You may live in the city but do you think you’ll stick to the pavement for your entire bug out route, I bet not.
There are three parts to foot care, Preparation, prevention, and treatment. Preparation is all about making your feet able to handle miles of walking with a pack on your back and the only way to do this is by walking/hiking long distances, often with your fully loaded bug out bag or a bag of similar weight.
Prevention also comes with experience. The more you hike the more you learn about your feet and how they deal with the pounding and rubbing that comes with long hikes. Knowing when and where you are going to get hot spots will allow you to have the right gear and know when it’s time to use it to prevent blisters and other injuries. Once you do get a blister or injury you need to know how to treat those injuries.
One key to keeping your feet going strong is to wear wool socks. Wool has many benefits like the ability to wick moisture away from your skin, keeping your feet dry, thus preventing blisters. Whatever gear you choose, make sure you get out and use it before you need it. Learn about what it takes to cover a lot of miles with a loaded pack on now, so when it comes
Navigation
Being able to use a map and compass is an important skill especially in today’s age when GPS guides us where ever we want to go but being prepared means not relying on technologies that can fail. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t include a portable GPS unit in your bug out kit, I just wouldn’t think that’s all you will need.
Unless you are navigating through mountains or heavily wooded areas you don’t even need topographic maps. A compass and a good up to date local and state maps will most likely get you where you need to go.
Step #5 – Determine How Long It Will Take To Get To Your Bug Out Location
There are many factors that will determine how long it will take to get to your bug out location. Are you driving or walking? How far is it to your bug out destination? Is it summer or is it winter? Also, the type of disaster can affect your rate of travel. So why is this important? This is important because you need to know how much time you will be without guaranteed supplies. This will be one of the leading factors in choosing how much food and water you need to pack in your bug out kit.
DRIVING: If driving there are several things that will affect your rate of travel. Traffic density, if everyone else in your community is trying to leave town at the same time, your progress will be greatly hindered by the mother of all traffic jams. Another factor is the weather and/or road conditions or obstructions. Road conditions are self-explanatory but have you considered road obstructions? This is where having things like a chain saw and tow strap for moving downed trees will be almost necessary. Dealing with these things takes valuable time and time equals calories burned.
WALKING: If walking, what type of terrain will you be covering and what’s your fitness level? For more information on fitness for survival check out my article Fitness For Preppers – The Strength to Survive
Also, remember that you are only as fast as the slowest member of your group. If the average person can walk 2-4 miles per hour on a flat paved surface you should expect to be moving much slower if traveling off the beaten path.
When deciding on how much food and water to take always pack more that what you think you will need. If you don’t need it you can always give it to someone who does.
Step #6 – Bug Out Location Assessment
So, you succeeded in making it to your bug out location, now what? Now you should perform an assessment of your bug out location. You need to verify that this new location is safe from the threats which forced you to leave your home in the first place and verify that the new location doesn’t have any pending threats. Once the new location is secure, you should assess your shelter, water, and food situation and work to resolve any problems that may have been discovered.
Once you and your group are squared away in your new location you need to start gathering information from beyond your area. Whether it’s by HAM, AM/FM, shortwave or CB radios and/or by scouting out and away from your area, you need to know what’s going on, it’s all about situational awareness. The more you know about what’s going on the better informed you are and this will allow you to make better decisions.
Now that you have a bug out plan, you need a Bug Out Kit to ensure you make it to your bug out location, it’s time to go on to Step #3 Building A Bug Out Bag/Kit