JJ made a comment about the type of situations that a person might face in the United States. He broke them into "natural disasters" and "Red Dawn", but this is really a severe over simplification.

I break "emergencies" into three categories:

NATURAL Disasters
MAN-MADE Disasters
SOCIAL ECONOMICAL POLITICAL Disasters

NATURAL

Natural disasters include:

* Tornadoes
* Earthquakes
* Hurricanes
* Volcanoes
* Tsunamis
* Forest Fires (although these are often Man-Made too)
* Insert YOUR Issues Here That Affect YOUR Area of Operation

MAN-MADE

Man-Made disaster include:

* Train-Derailments (with hazardous cargo like chemicals, gases, etc)
* Nuclear Plant Melt Down
* Industrial Accidents (e.g. we have a local plant that produces a type of plastic which requires PHOSGENE in the manufacturing process. This is MUSTARD GAS! Fire Departments as far as 100 miles away have been notified that if this plant burns people will have to be evacuated)
* Water Source Contamination
* Insert YOUR concerns here based upon YOUR AO.

SOCIAL ECONOMIC POLITICAL

These are equally likely in our current world environment. Unemployment is high, the government continues to grow its tyranical behavior, the national debt is spiraling out of control, rioting / civil disobeyidence is increasing etc.

SEP issues are those that are INTENTIONALLY MALICIOUS in nature. Natural and Man-Made disasters are accidents.

Examples include:

* Dirty Bomb
* Rioting
* Looting (post Natural, Man-Made, or SEP)
* Civil War
* Austerity Based Measures (starving people will behave differently)
* Police State Actions (the Government is rounding up gun owners or whatever)
* Forced Inoculations
* Microchip Implanting
* Banning Any of the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, religion, whatever)
* Insert a plethora of other issues here.

The following is the SURVIVALIST LOGIC CHART that I developed and recommend:

STEP ONE - SELF INVENTORY

Conduct a personal evaluation - Be honest with yourself and determine if you need to loose weight, build strength, adjust your sleeping habits, seek better employment, increase your knowledge base, spend less time on recreational pursuits at the cost of self-improvement, stop smoking, whatever.

STEP TWO - ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

Conduct a detailed study of your environment - with the goal of identifying the perils you AND YOUR COMMUNITY FACE.

NOTE: I capitalized the community component, because even if you are a rural dweller and out of the "suck zone" - you will be affected by the community nearest to which you live.

Develop a list of issues that might affect you. For example, are there any railroad tracks within 10 miles? Are they up or down wind from the typical prevailing wind direction? Do you live within 100 miles of a Chemical or Biological plant or repository? Is there a military base within 100-200 miles? Is that base a small installation or does it have strategic and/or tactical value to an enemy?

STEP THREE - DEVELOP A PLAN OF ACTION

Once you've identified the perils you face - develop a set of responses to those disaters. For example, if a train derails our first option is...X, but if that fails we can Y, and as a last resort we need to Z.

This step also includes PERSONAL GOALS like losing weight, walking to get in better shape, learning a new trade or skill, etc.

STEP FOUR - DEVELOP A LIST OF GEAR NEEDED

Now that you've evaluated yourself and your environment and developed a POA you need to develop a list of gear to help you achieve these.

I break this down into three categories: Bug-In, Vehicular Bug-Out, and Foot Bug-Out.

Obviously "bugging in" is the best option. You have the comfort and security of your home plus a vast amount of space to store "survival stuff" (food, ammo, water, blankets, cooking supplies, medical supplies, etc).

A V-BO is much preferred to to a F-BO because you have a rolling shelter that can carry a lot more gear than your back.

The F-BO is a last resort. YOU DO NOT WANT TO BECOME A REFUGEE IF YOU CAN AVOID IT. Bugging out on foot because of a Natural or Man-Made disaster can land you in a SEP situation (Katrina is an example - the government was disarming people - which could have turned ugly).

ETA - I'm adding the following images to prevent people from thinking that my SEP issues are unfounded (or that I'm a conspiracy nut). We need to be intellectually honest and acknowledge that America isn't headed in a good direction:




Based upon the above FBI flyer I'm a terrorist because: A) I would defend the Constitution, B) I made references to it in this post.

The following is the last page of the 2009 MIAC Report. This report identifies people who support Anti-Abortion, Gun Rights, Ron Paul or who just have a HISTORIC Don't Tread On Me sticker as "militia":



Read the report for yourself...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13290698/The-M...Report-20Feb09-