We all know preparation is key to increasing our survival odds so where better to start than your home. There is much that crosses over between all preps so I won’t be covering the absolute basics in what food stores to stock pile and the like. There are very good and informative guides here and discussions on the forum site that cover these subjects I wouldn’t attempt at bettering.
This guide attempts to cover steps to take in preparation of an urban survival situation starting at home to the outskirts of your locality. To keep it as short as possible to digest I have not gone in toomuch depth. Details on some of the things mentioned that can be categorised into their own parts are seperate where we can spend time examining specific techniques (entry methods etc).
That being said, lets start with part 1.
So we have our lists from the intro but let’s go over the items and add a few more. I’ll list them as kits for certain purposes but only for reference, obviously many items can be used for other jobs.
Entry kit:
Bolt cutter, pocket screw driver – nut – hex sets, pry bars, pad locks, lock picks, torch (red filter).
General scavenging kit:
Wire cutters, pocket screw – nut – hex sets, pry bars, collapsible shovel, multiple sacks for swag, torch (red filter).
PPI (personal protective equipment):
Thick gloves, face mask (the medical ones are fine but so are the gas masks for the extra prepared… Both would be better), suitable footwear.
Medical equipment:
Although the same things as rural survivors you will likely have more opportunity to scavenge drugs. Think about that and at least prep to stock up for post event in your scavenging. Get a few Peltier coolers you can use to build makeshift refrigerators ideal for keeping medicines cool.
Hunting tools.
If your experienced with a bow; great you’ve likely stock piled already, if not then TAKE NOTE.
Buy an air rifle, if your inexperienced I’d suggest either .177 or .22 calibre (I prefer .22 for punching power though .177 is easier to get to grips with). Get a half decent scope. Stock up on pellets, learn to use the rifle safely, how to zero a scope, etc. avoid pcp and co2 rifles instead buy a spring powered rifle. They are consistant, cheap, and require no extra input then ‘breaking’ the barrel to make ready. (More on rifles later).
Practice making small working traps, buy as many books as reference material as you like.
Enough on lists.
A little bit about the inventory,
- RED LIGHT…I specifically mentioned red filters on your torches as all in all its the best light to use when hunting, and when trying to keep a low profile. Animals largely cannot see red and red light blends in with darkness better than white. when avoiding being seen by others (sop see military use red light in ops) this would be what you want.
- LOCKS… After picking locks (google “multipick service” I have used them and are reliable though I have been informed not the cheapest.) you want to secure the building again, of course you may have used the bolt cutter to chop padlocks and you can replace these with your own securing the building. Picking a tumbler lock and replacing the barrel isn’t likely to practical and spare keys are often found in their respective buildings.
- PPI…. You’ll want to avoid getting injured, there’s not much if anything you can do to avoid broken bones but cuts /puncture wounds are going to be a common killer! You’ll have a small medi kit with you at all times anyway but try to avoid getting cut in the first place, for rummaging, forcing entry etc wear your gloves, avoid breathing anything nasty in from a nearby burning building/vehicle you may not be able to move away from. areas where disease is rampant would be advisable to mask up to (think China during the Tzars outbreak).
- MEDICAL… Peltier coolers take little energy to operate, can be used to heat or cool (switch polarities) and can even generate a small current if set up correctly. Use these to build makeshift coolers for medicines out of Tupperware or similar containers.
So that’s pretty much covered, google will help those of you that want to know more about the science behind all of the above.
THE HOME
Applies mainly to people that will stay in their home location but can be adapted to anyone in an urban bug out.
Measure your windows, go to B&Q and buy enough wood, raw plugs and screws to be able to board up your house, covering at least the street level floor. Store these items in the attic, as soon as the news reporters jump over their desks to flee the city its time to lock down your home.
Identify entry points onto your property, walls, fences etc should be in a state of good repair. Bolster defences with natural barriers like holly, rose bushes, anything with barbs and thorns that grow densely and preferably quickly. Broken slate or shingle is good for hearing intruders if they get past your 1st line defences. Floodlights that are wired up to alert you indoors by buzzer or light is an idea iv seen and am in the process of installing.
That’s about as much as you can do to your home in preparation (in as generally speaking as possible) before an event.
—After Event—
Broken glass, caltrops (nails through bits of wood will do) bushcraft traps designed for things dog sized and up disguised should be around your property with only one safe walkway (that shouldn’t be obvious) only known to you and your family group. Rubbish up your garden prior to this to give the illusion the house has been vacated and sacked, throw out everything non vital/useless. Do the same to neighbours houses if they have vacated, take what you need from their homes; bedding, food, tools, car keys.
THE STREET
Get to know neighbours all you like, people will change and possibly or even likely turn on you but acquaint yourselves even build a friendship and you’ll hopefully be the last house they think of hitting. Obviously keep your prepping a secret, don’t show off what you have in general either, this is good advice even for the non prepper. Take note of any attributes your neighbours display, violent people, police officers, paramedics, warehouse workers. Build up enough info to perform your own risk assessment on them, make special note of anyone that would be useful in a crisis.
Identify access to your street, dead end roads are not only accessible from one way, use google maps, who’s back garden opens up to another street, other gardens, fields etc… How could you secure them? If not the gardens the houses? Draw up a plan on how to do this in your street and work out your alternative escape routes too.
Work out which room in your home gives you the best field of view of the area. This will be you primary observation post where you or a group member will man, work out the most visible routes into your street from your window, draw up a plan on exactly where to place obstacles to force people into your direct view.
Make sure the area is in a good state of repair (street lights – roads – border fences onto common land etc) and don’t stop calling every chance you get until things are perfect or at least as good as the council can afford!
—After Event—
Keep tabs on who’s left and who’s stayed, quickly encourage a neighbourhood watch and patrol, fix up those access points and choke the street into giving you the best field of view by placing vehicles or barricades. Nothing like a wall (yet) remember to stay off the radar so strategically place those vehicular or otherwise blockades. At this point the group (if any) will know you’ve prepped to some extent don’t let them know to what but advise them to do as you do. You’ve been to a few survival lessons etc…
Hide your food stores around the home and in caches around your property.
Set your traps, alarms and other defences you planned, tell and help neighbours to do the same, if your in a group you’ll have to show some faith/trust in them in letting each other know the safe routes up to your homes.
Keep an eye on morale, attitudes and behaviour, whether in a group or family unit. Your only as strong as your weakest link is how the old saying goes…
THE AREA
Buy maps, download them and print, visit the library and photocopy. You want street maps, and anything else you can get hold off (sewage etc) that could be useful or at the very least of interest. Highlight a 1 mile radius from your location. Take note of chemists, doctors surgeries, shops, petrol stations, industrial estates, warehouses and allotments. Work out how long it takes you to move from one location and back on a return trip. Familiarise yourself with this zone until you can draw a map from memory. Identify other structures and places of note, police fire ambulance hospital council depots, builders yards, farms, nurseries, small holdings, raf/naval/army bases, shooting ranges, airfields etc list them and make notes on what resources they may contain for future reference. Better to do this now and know where to go then blindly try to discover them if you can’t research where they are post event.
If there’s nothing much you can do to your area to benefit you than research. This is pure perpetration.
—After Event—
Get yourselves down to the construction sites, and open areas first. Observe the area before walking right up to it. This early on in the post event scenario chances are no one else will be prospecting the same area but always stay alert. Later months you should be more vigilant but by this time you should have squirrelled away most of what’s of use to sites no one will bother with. Take fuel batteries tools and anything of use, cache what you can’t take in bulk off site to go back to later, hidden in buildings that no one would be interested in would be best, derelict structures or housing developments would be my first choice. If not available hide items as best you can. Using your maps take one route to and another from the location your targeting. If you where observed going to or coming from the area this minimises chances of getting caught in an ambush. Remember to secure buildings after you have made entry (more on this later).
Stay cautious. Small groups are better to move faster and undetected.
EXIT STRATEGY
If things get bad to the point you have to get out you need to think smart. You will have caches of emergency stores buried at checkpoints outside of the populated area along your escape routes that you drew up using your maps. Avoid roads of all types, try to familiarise yourself with the basics of map reading, natural landmarks etc to aid your navigational skills. Railway lines, and electrical structures all run from major populations to the next and are good man made points of reference, use them in your escape plan. Keep in mind that a one hour drive could amount to days walking cross country so factor in supplies to your new bug out location. Stick close to fresh water sources and pack bug out bags appropriate to season/weather.
CONCLUSION
Remember this is a generalisation I have tried to cover most of the bases that would apply to most people in an urban environment, use the info and tailor it to your own need.
The next part to this series of articles will cover entry methods, securing resources, and a guide on where the best ‘risk reward’ options to find such resources can be found.
Anything people wish to add that I missed relevant to home location preps specific to staying urban please comment. I’ve not listed everything I’d have liked to as feel its all pretty dry stuff being mostly made up of common sense material, but a necessary starting point before we delve into the meat of things. After the series of articles have concluded I will create an unabridged version in PDF format I will offer up to the website for people’s downloading leisure.
when using red lights, avoid red leds, or white leds with red filters, go for a normal bulb, and red filters, you can still see, but the red light, is not as visible from long distances, and you wont dazzle anyone else near you if you shine it straight into their eyes by accident. old style rear bike lights, are good. Carry a powerful white led torch as well, purely to dazzle anyone else you meet that needs dazzling.
very useful article Jack, but i do wonder….its great if you own your own house, you can board it up and harden off the access but not all of us are in that position, a lot of us are in rented accomodation…i’m in HA property and i know several people on the forum are in private rented property, so there is a limit to what we can store on the property and what we are allowed to do to the property, mine is 15-20 year old modern semi detached….ALL electric, no fireplaces or chimneys, i’m not allowed to fit a wood burner although i have one in the “garage” for post SHTF, i know once TSHTF all bets are off and all rules are null and void but by then its too late to do anything.
Good advice franc, that actually hadn’t occurred to me that most torches re LED these days, old style bulbs are, as you say, the better option.
A good point Paul, and one that I planned to cover in a new category labelled “Bug out locations IN the city”… In hindsight this should have been part of the home location article but felt there was a lot to cover on city BOL’s so will include it with the next as a part 1.1.
but for now just a couple things on current HA-rented accom…
People that own their own homes and to a lesser but not by much of an extent council homes you can get away with pretty much anything.
You’ll have to get creative in HA-rented accommodation. If you have an attic or storage space you can still put away boards for windows, reinforcement parts and locks for doors etc, as you say once TSHTF the usual laws don’t apply so the landlord is just another bloke I wouldn’t worry about.
I would look at what is securable? Is their a communal space round back that can be blocked/locked up, outside the front of your building is their a communal car park? Any way of securing that? Tower blocks have the potential to be mini war zones or fortresses, to many factors to go over but you’ll have a good idea of your own block if you should get out because Leroy and Winston from upstairs are going to run out of smack any day now or its nice and cozy with miss clarkson from number 54B with another of her tin of rock cakes….
I don’t think I could have changed much of what I had put to my article without it loosing its more generalised touch and becoming more tailored. Council homes are widespread and though have different floor plans are all pretty much the same lay out as far as street, resources and residents go. Iv lived in HA and private rented, through my experience HA tend to do things strangely in communal living areas, private landlords proclaime themselves gods unless you het a good one and all have policies that would be impossible to incorporate into a general guide.
Ultimately though if you can’t take action or plan bunkering down in your area your left with IMO three options,
1) do nothing hope you’ll be alright eating miss clarkson’s cakes.
2) bug out to a countryside location.
3) bug out to a secondary city location
Which depends on your own personal circumstance, location and inclination.
a good reply Jack for which i thank you. i dont think “council” houses as such exist any more, their all HA now…private companies who run things from a very distant office in some cases, ours is 30 miles away and we only see someone ONCE a year on a so called “estate visit”-usually on market day so no one is around!so to an extent we are left alone to get on with things.
Something to think about, a lot of housing estates have a old drug house, that has metal plates on the windows and doors, for 6 or 12 months at a time, you could take one of them over PSHTF and have yourselves a ready made fortress, either for caching stock, or just for living in. or just leaver the metal plates off the windows and doors then move them to yours, and mess up the front yard a bit.
something else to think about urban bug in locations, quite a few neighbourhoods are part of the alley-Gateing project, paid for by the local council, which section off whole areas, you could turn a whole block of houses into one big fortress, by just locking the front doors, and gates. the whole alley area could be easily buried under a few foot of soil, and used as a communal garden, If your raiding a warehouse, or building, dont forget to check fire exits, just in case you need to do a runner, make that your first job, before you start filling your bags etc. nothing like trying to escape from a larger gang of looters, then finding that the last person to leave the warehouse padlocked the fire doors.
oh, and if your going to glass up your area, or put down caltrops etc, get some use out of them, and dip the points in dog dirt, or smear it over the glass, may as well add blood poisoning to the mix. oh, and nettles, fast growing nettles, painful stinging nettles, fast growing, next to walls, both inside and outside the wall, you can even use them for cooking, or nettle wine.
We only saw council workers down the street when replacing windows or making repairs to those ex drug dealer houses that Franc mentioned… They don’t bother with that anymore, when I moved in to my house it was border line derelict, if you wanted something done you would have months to wait or opt to do it yourself!
Iv not heard of that project franc, is it local to your council only? The only thing swindon do to their alley ways is to paint double yellow lines down them (even if there two foot wide!).
Ill be covering some of what you mentioned in the next part under securing resources re: exiting resources/warehouses etc.
The fortress idea using a metal boarded ex dealers house would be an option, if it was the only one and I had nothing else in place I’d use one myself, but there designed to be hard to remove so could attract attention unwanted and moving your supplies to said property would be a bigger risk, a good emergency option though.
Ill pop part of 1.1 here as the conversation is leaning into it. Ill keep it brief and less formal than above as its a beautiful day outside and I’m experimenting with a few squirrel skins I’m tanning.
Bug out within urban/city area locations.
I employ this method as a back up plan B that I will use as an intermediate location between my bug in urban and bug out rural location. I’d strongly suggest you all consider the same, it gives you a chance to stop restock and asses your next steps and the situation that forced you to leave your home location before committing to taking the next step, wether because your over run or had/have no opportunity to do so.
Your home location should be the best stocked, most thought out, best defensible position in your plan, your rural location should, ideally be on par, your “phase bug out” that im suggesting be part of everyones plan should be securable and provide shelter/food for a week or as long as you can afford.
I opt for a couple council rented garages, they cost under £10 per week to rent and its yours for good as long as you pay your dues… Some areas this wouldn’t be an option as they are in high demand but the same can be done in storage lock ups to a degree.
In my garage I store a few old usual bits and pieces unrelated to a SHTF scenario, but mostly its packed with tinned meats and other tinned foods, bottled water, batteries, a digital and analogue radio and some clothing. Ideally a second unit next to the main one that would house a generator and fuel to provide power and heat to enable a comfortable stay for longer and of course if you have the money, and something I have on my wish list for my home location, a decent cb radio.
Adapted well you could stay at this location indefinatly, these places usually have high walls, are sometimes gated but if not have limited acces etc… And of course full of treasures (others may well come looking to loot so invest well on security.) that people overlook.
the alley gating scheme covers a fair bit of the north-west usually in terraced housing areas, where 3 or 4 gates can block off a lot of rear entry yards. My block is shaped more like a T with gates at the base, and the two cross ends, 3 gates to fence off the whole area. Big heavy gates as well, 8 foot high, 14 foot wide.
The only prob with slapping poisons or the like on traps is if your unlucky you or a child in the group etc could experience some friendly fire, causing infection which will eat up your resources quicker. When you weigh up then the benefit of knowing your aggressor will, after running away with dog poo in a deep wound, get infected, over time, and with no immediate defensible benefit I’d worry the the cons out way the pro’s for poisons… A spike in the leg is a spike in the leg…
Ah nothing like that in the southwest to my knowledge, just those double yellow lines!
If your lucky enough to get an allotment, you can stash a fair bit of stuff in the shed your allowed, even doss down in it PSHTF just make sure you hide or lock you stash, much less security than a garage.
Hi Jack, very good piece. Agree with your point about trying to befriend neighbors, but keeping the extent of preparations secret. Good point also about folks changing after the event. Its going to happen. Number one key to survival in any situation is the desire to live, to keep going, believe its possible. After the event there may be a large number of people that simply give up and thus will perish. Many others will panic as the reality of the situation sinks in. Maybe even someone close. In regards to urban survival I think it’s crucial after the event to try to team up with at least a few like minded people. Myself, I plan on looking for decent folks with families that have the right mindset. We have extra weapons and other supplies needed to multiply our “force”.
Two advantages I see in urban versus rural are shelter and invisibility. Due to some of the reasons mentioned above, I think our family will have to leave our residence at some point. We have several locations within 5 miles that may offer suitable shelter. Does that make us refugees? Most are vacant commercial properties. My thinking is scavengers/raiders wont be very interested in a vacant commercial property. Offices may be good too- think about it, no one is going to work. I prefer these to moving into an empty house and then the owner shows up very pissed off. Lots of shelter available if you look around. As one of the members says in their signature line” invisibility is a major part of survival”. It may be easier to disappear in the concrete jungle than in the wilderness. Sorry I cant recall the members name at the moment, please don’t be offended, I’m just drawing a blank now.
Two big concerns I have are major fires burning out of control and what the wealthy and powerful will be up to. After the event there will still be rich and powerful people and they will still be trying to run things for their own benefit. I imagine they will be controlling the police and military and confiscating everything they can “for the common good”. Those that don’t cooperate could face severe and immediate punishment.
I’ve worked in warehousing most of my life, currently the manager of a large warehouse facility. Curious why you mention warehouse workers in the same sentence with police and paramedics as attributes to look for.
http://tinyurl.com/alley-gates mine look a bit like this, same council.
warehouse workers, very useful, know where the warehouses are, the best ways in, the exact layout, which house to visit for the key holder, and the best stuff to take. You can spend a lot of time wandering around a warehouse, without a guide to tell you where the most useful stuff for you is. They probably know where the internal key box is, for the secure storage areas. They will know how to drive a forklift truck, or the best ways to move large amounts of stuff from point a, to point b.
Dont forget to check the area for any supermarket workers, the ones that work replenishment, not the tills.
Exactly what Franc said Rush!
This would have been made clearer in the resources part 2 but yes, warehouse workers may well be the guides that post event survivors need to take advice from. I should imagine that you as a manager know supply lines for companies not even necessarily for the one you work, warehouses catalogue and store items in a similar fashion and having someone with that kind of knowledge saves time and further resources. Identifying where resources are can be achieved much quicker by identifying WHO knows where they’ll be.
i live on the outskirts on a small market town, so i’ve got a foot in both camps as it were-both rural and urban, no tower blocks just a couple of 3 storey ones..about 6 flats in each, the rest is houses..owner occupiers/private lettings and HA property, one road in..same road out again, no through traffic and no buses…no serious drug problems, mainly “wacky” baccy although some one dumped some needles in the kiddies play park last year. no real problem with any neighbours, 1 or 2 i’d be a bit wary of but nothing serious, lots of single mothers with kids and 1 single father. i am surrounded by fields and woods, 20 second walk out of my house and i am in the countryside.i’ve got an 8ft high fence all the way around and a good field of fire, i can see for a quarter of a mile in 3 directions, the 4th side is blocked by the semi next door we are attached to.
In my estimation the best way into a warehouse is through the offices, then make your way into the storage area and try to find a door that manually opens. Many of the doors are run by electric motors now. These doors are extremely heavy and secure. the weakness is the door frame itself. If these are the only doors available my advice would be to grab a big pallet of something with the forklift and ram the door. I’ve seen doors hit by accident, they seem to come down pretty easy when hit by a forklift. 🙂 Then use the forklift to drag the door assembly out of the way. One problem is there’s no way to conceal what you’ve done. Get what you can and get out. Usually inside the warehouse the only items under additional security / lock down are commercial electronic items that folks like to steal. These items would be of little use. If I came upon a secured area within a warehouse I would usually pass it by unless I had reason to think there were weapons or medicine there. Food items are not going to be subject to additional security inside the warehouse as their low value doesn’t justify the cost of additional protection. Televisions, phones, computers, etc are another story.
It’s that kind of information that will be among the most valuable Rush, I wouldn’t know any of that and would have to learn as I go, but having and identifying what people’s professions where pre any SHTF event will increase your chances, hence warehouse workers and anyone for that matter in logistics being mentioned
small items like rechargeable battery’s that work in your equipment, walkie talkies, webcams that can be used with your laptop for security, high spec camcorders with infra red night vision, spare laptop batteries, spare parts for your laptop or printer or satnav, satnavs with cardmaps that can be powered by a solar battery. all going to be useful and locked away.
also check near the roller shutters, a lot of places still have a manual chain system, that may just need you to disconect the motor, and replace it with a chain, to open the shutters. and if your entering from offices to the warehouse, with internal doors, look at a car jack, great for damaging the door frame enough to bypass the lock.
I have a few points here, what if your landlord decides his present abode isnt suitable for him and evicts you from the property? I also think military will be called in to safeguard warehouses (food, medical, chemist) etc. Bang go my plans of getting ready supplies being in the vicinity of a rather large food supplier. Bug out vehicles.. what if its an EMP they wont be any use to us. Plan, Plan, and Plan again and get others on your side.
Fair questions Nel and the answer to each is the same… Tough…
To expand on that; in a situation where property rights can be enforced to the point your evicted or military can exert that kind of control over resources then the proverbial has yet to really hit the fan and were all really still just going through the paces still… So abide by the law and do as your told, if the military could control food stores then a rationing system would be implemented.
To expand further; we do not have the man power even when you combine military and civilian security services to protect all of these areas if any, the armed services will have their numbers bolstered by a civilian element to protect strategic locations only (something that has been spoken of on the forum) and there will be an expiration date on how long they continue to do so before they enact a little tactical demolition at these key sites before any hail Mary strategem may be thrown out there…
Concerning landlords I wouldn’t worry about eviction, I can’t speak for Scottish law but in the rest of the uk you cannot simply be ‘evicted’. Your landlord may ask you to vacate, and you may refuse, he then has to go to court to have a ruling made to have you evicted which if you refused again then again he would need the court to sign off on having you removed by baliff. But your local authority has a duty of care and required by law to rehome you, even in a B&B.
Now all this takes months and if the process even begins at all then it’s quite literally not the end of the world, if your landlord attempts to evict you post event and does not care for your having safety, wants what you currently have, and feels like he will take it what does that make him? A looter… If not then at the very least an aggressor… If I where to have a landlord and was having him try to seperate my family from safety I’d feel justified in making the problem ‘disappear’ by any means at my disposal.
EMP fries electrical circuits boards that older vehicles do not need to run, an emp would not render all electrical circuits useless, just those sensitive to magnetic disturbance.
An emp of that magnitude to cause a shtf event isn’t currently in any military arsenal but when it is will be a deterrent weapon as are the nukes most countries have.
Car use in my article was mainly for use in barricades but if a solar event happened that killed electronics on the kind of scale that pushed this country into anarchy and no older non ECU dependant engines where knocking around then you adapt.
The electronic system in a car, the ‘ECU’, is the brain behind the engine that regulates, among other things, fuel to air ratios, ignition etc… It’s a small box in the vehicle that if you wanted, could protect from magnetic disturbance. Personally I don’t see EMP as an issue so not high on my own list but that’s my personal opinion, much
More likely cars will be of no use thanks to no fuel.
with regards to fuel, filling station pumps are electrically powered so if the power goes off..no fuel, there may be a few old pumps out in the sticks that have a hand pump but they are mostly antiques.
oh yeah, same with supermarkets with automatic doors, power goes off doors wont open, you will have to force them open, or just go for smaller shops with ordinary doors!
Petrol stations have air vents on the fuel storage tanks, you have to lever the small hatch cover up, then drop a pipe down, with a suction pump. You can force open electronic doors very easy with no power, they are designed not to lock by default as a safety feature from sudden power loss, they have to be manually locked with a key. When locked with the control panel, its only a motor that can be pushed apart with about 10 lbs of pressure, use a large screwdriver, or crowbar. If its a double slideing door, ignore the middle lock if its on, use a crowbar/shovel on the lower corner, and pop it out of its runner.
OR just go in the staff entrance!!
Staff entrance’s if separate from the main shop entrance are usually hardened, with extra security built in. The main defence for the big store front doors, is the shutter system most shops have. The big glass doors are not really designed for security, if you dont mind a bit of a mess, you can shatter the glass easily, their main aim is to control access, and for air conditioning and similar stuff. If you can gain access, a roof is probably your best bet, but still will take time, you could try a car jack, under a shutter, or just ram raid into the loading bay.
that seems a hell of a lot of hassle, you could get inside and find the store has been emptied prior to TSHTF, probably by the sheeple panicing and looting the place, i expect most supermarkets to fall into this category,i expect the sheeple to target food shops for their bread and milk-thats what will go first (check out the supermarket queues on a bank holiday)and then all the ready meals, i will be heading to superdrug and the camping shops instead.