Hello and welcome to the beginnings of our awesome survival section!

Escape. One simple word, and it’s one of your first steps. This is a quick tip, so forget the fact that you need provisions and and to be prepared before this happens. Let’s just say you already have a nicely stocked shelter on some land you own about 30 miles from the city. In this shelter you have everything you need, including food and enough supplies to become self sufficient within the next 3 months. This sounds great but how do you get out to your gloriously prepared hide-a-way? If all hell breaks loose and you are still asking yourself this question, it will have already been too late. You need an escape plan.

When thinking about being prepared for societal collapse or any disaster type situation, you need to know how to get out when the time comes. Go ahead and jot down a few notes on different scenarios. During a normal work day where will you be?  How quickly can you get back to your house? Are you able to bailout quickly without a trip back to your house? All of these are valid questions and ones you need to think about. For myself the first step is to locate and gather my family. We have spoken about different triggers that will signal us to get back to the house quickly for a meet. For instance, depending on the scenario — the internet across the country may blackout and all cell phones may cease to be in service. Is this a big enough trigger for you? If not you may be thinking the wrong way.

I suggest that you:

-List a meeting place such as your house or the predetermined safe house outside the city (depending on the ages of all involved).

-Decide on a length of time that you might wait if you are meeting back at the house. After a certain amount of time it’s no longer a waiting game. After a predetermined amount of time you must make that commitment to bail out of the city. If you have children at school and there is a sort of lock-down there, you might need to rush in and collect them before anything else happens.

-Plan MULTIPLE routes through the city. The most direct route via the highway might be blocked. Those barriers are EASILY moved by whoever wants to block the roadways.

-Plan with back roads and even off-road in mind. Do NOT rule out abandoning your vehicle as this is always an option and you should have a walk-out-bag in the car at all times for such a purpose. Going on foot will sometimes be the only way.

-Don’t stop for anything except for necessities. There shouldn’t be anything on this list if preparation was done properly ahead of time. If you do indeed have a place that is stocked up and outside of the city, you don’t need anything except your self and loved ones to make it out there unscathed. Even your vehicle is optional (although it does make things easier).

If none of this applies to you and you think you might be safe in the city (in most scenarios this is a very iffy decision, and the outcome is hard to predict), then your only concern is to get home and get to your safest room. Make sure you have your family (and dog/hamster/ferret/parrot) and settle down with your prepared food pouches.

If a natural disaster such as a Tornado comes though, you should be in your safe room. If any of the following happens, you will want to follow my previous advice:

Zombies

Apocalypse of any kind

Societal or complete and utter economic collapse complete with looting, rioting and gallows being erected for the local state representative.

Foreign army invasion?

Pretty much anything that isn’t a Tornado…even hurricanes require you to get the hell out of the city you are in!

Plan, Plot, Plan backup ideas, and when the time comes… Execute.

This has been useful thoughts for survival, brought to you by SurvivingTech.com!

-Matthew Pizgatti

Part 2