Urban/Suburban OPSEC

[Sockpuppet]

Question not answered.

[Infidel]

I'm in a rural area, small town kinda place. I'm staying put if it all goes south. There's plenty of small game with walking distance and the town reservoir is less than 2mi from me as the crow flies and their fence isn't going to last too long if we need water. We're on a well so as long as I can pump water I'll be ok. Long term power outage (grid down) I'll have issues but otherwise I think we'll be ok. If I need to defend the place I can see pretty much every avenue of approach from my roof so not too worried about someone sneaking up. I have no BOL so if necessary my only choice would be to load up and head to the woods, wouldn't be a lot of fun but we could make do I guess.

-Infidel

[Montana Rancher]

Just a matter of curiosity for those who live in an urban or suburban area: What is your security plan for WROL?

Will you bug out, take a fixed defensive position, or go actively hunting? Or possibly a combination of all the former?

A good question and here are a few things I've thought about for suburban dwellers.

If you are on public water, it will only last a couple days and you need to have a backup source. I am amazed at the number of "preppers" that think the river or lake (i.e. open water) will be a viable source. I would expect all open water sources to be contaminated within a week or 2, so have a filtration system.

If you are on a public sewer system you should not only expect failures but also expect backups if you are in a low lying or flat area. When the people at higher elevations "flush" you are going to have raw sewage coming out of your toilet, if you want to be prepared, you should have a plan to cap off your outgoing sewage and then plan on digging a hole.

As for the actively hunting crowd, I know of very few people that could make a living that way. After a couple weeks of the collapse, the easy game will be hunted out, so even if you are a decent hunter (and I know most are not) the choices of game will be drastically reduced. Fishing will be a better bet, or foraging for edible plants.

[Just Sayin']

I live in a rural area, but that won't mean much when the hordes start spreading out from the large city that's an hour away. I am optimistic, sarcastically, that we might have a week before they've pillaged far enough to reach us, so we'll defend in place while we can, and then bugout by horse to our hideaway. After getting there, we'll have enough supplies to make it a couple of months easily, and wait to see what we have to do next.

[Montana Rancher]

I live in a rural area, but that won't mean much when the hordes start spreading out from the large city that's an hour away. I am optimistic, sarcastically, that we might have a week before they've pillaged far enough to reach us, so we'll defend in place while we can, and then bugout by horse to our hideaway. After getting there, we'll have enough supplies to make it a couple of months easily, and wait to see what we have to do next.

There is another option, though it may piss some people off.

If you have a decent "home" location and can stockpile food and have a decent water source, you may want to consider staying in place.

Although you have a lot of people in your area, the stench and sight of several dozen corpses around your perimeter will probably deter the weak ones from approaching any further. The strong ones are not a problem as they are only preying on the weak.

Of course Season 2 of "the walking dead" will be a bit different, that might be a good time to move to plan B

[Innkeeper]

My plan is to bug in initially, same thought as your saying MR, I have a good home well built, just outside a small town, some close neighbors but all are of like mind, I will bug out as a last resort and have that as an option B but I have well and septic and I am always working on improvements to the house, solar is my work plan for next spring/summer to help improve my place.

[Montana Rancher]

My plan is to bug in initially, same thought as your saying MR, I have a good home well built, just outside a small town, some close neighbors but all are of like mind, I will bug out as a last resort and have that as an option B but I have well and septic and I am always working on improvements to the house, solar is my work plan for next spring/summer to help improve my place.

A solid plan, with your set-up if you can access your well water you should be golden.

[Coppertop]

MR said something about actively hunting not making a "good" living. I tend to agree that in the short term ( and I am talking about my local area) there will be a pretty good run on game. but for those of us that make it through the first winter, I think that the game will start making a come back and it may be viable to hunt again. There was a reason that the Native Americans moved around(nomadic) but if you really study the area that they moved in, it wasn't that big. They usually moved no more than a day or two at a time and then set up home for a while again. They hunted the area and then moved but they came back around to the same spots again and again.

I like the idea of a "community" setup, where everyone has jobs and contributes to the whole. But I do see the drawback of those greedy people who may be there.

Thanks

[Just Sayin']

The fly in the ointment as I see it, is that the military graduates thousands of people just like you and me, some more skilled than others in tactical skills granted, that may or may not decide to band together, because there is strength in numbers, and all the more so if you can convince some of the dimwitted ones to be the "cannon fodder". In some people's cases, yes, you can defend in place for a fairly long time, but I would hazard a guess, that most people like me have a very finite window between "stacking wood" and "time to get the hell outta here".

By leaving the relative safety of my home, I gain mobility, the ability to pick and choose (to some extent) my battles, and offer a much lower profile as a target. The folks that know anything about tactics are much less likely to expend the energy and resources trying to pin a small group down that has a very small reward. Especially when you can make them pay some on the front end. Since we cannot really prevent close intrusion into our home, this is the path I've chosen to protect my family. It will have to work for us, but it isn't the plan for everyone. If you've got fields of fire that are measured in hundreds of yards, and enough people to properly defend it, that's awesome. We don't.

What you do have to have, is a plan, a plan B, and some thought about how you will handle different scenarios. Half the battle is won if you have a plan, the means to enact it, and one or more fallbacks when that plan goes to sh*t.

[Montana Rancher]

A lot of good replies, obviously what you can or plan to do is determined by your location, the time of year, and your resources.

I was just hoping to get people thinking about water, sewage, logistics in general.

I live 15 miles from the second largest city in Montana, so I have to deal with the out-flow from those that don't stay in place and think the Guvment will come with relief.

Of course the city I am talking about is about 70k people, and the small valley I live in produces enough grain to feed my entire state, so I think I might have a chance.

I don't look at bugging out as a alternative, but I don't see that I will need to. Truthfully I fear the military more than a local zombie herd.