too old and decrepit to bug out.

[BUGEYE]

the best I could do in a SHTF situation is load my guns and ammo and my little propane bottles in the back of my truck and drive to the mountains or south Georgia and try to hook up with a small community. would they welcome me and my ammo? or would they shoot me on sight?  I'm in an atlanta suburb so looters would be the problem with staying home.  any thoughts?

[OldH&R156er]

If you are retired, right now would be a good time to relocate to a small out of the way place and get yourself established in the community!
If that isn't an option right now, then go visit a couple of small communities and get your face recognized, spend some time around the locals to get your name in with them, and when the time comes, "as its looking more and more everyday that it will be necessary" when you reach the community after the fact, drive up slow "real slow" with a white flag on your antenna and your head stuck out the window.
A small nit community I would think would be a little slower on the draw and not have as itchy a trigger finger as say a cordoned off block in down town Atlanta!

[Scibaer]

you live in a suburb of a major city, right ?
you are retired, and you claim you are too old to bug out...
well you first need to figure out your goal, in a SHTF situation...

long term independent survival ?
wait for government/military rescue ?
short term/wait out the disaster ?
wait for friend/family rescue ?
long term travel/relocation survival ?

these are the primary scenarios that you need to figure out, before you plan on what time of preparedness you can plan for.
there will be some redundancy is the questions and answers, but regardless of the type of disaster, you need to think thru the type of rescue/preparedness you are willing or needing to execute.  and those answers come from answering the above questions.

[BUGEYE]

suburb of atlanta.  I am retired and need to stay close to a hospital.
the only real help I could give a community would be furnish about 20,000 rounds of .22lr and several bottles of propane.  I guess I could stand behind a tree with a gun to help defend them.
I'm disabled so I'm pretty useless.  I envy you young guys who could take to the woods if necessary.
it's really hard to make serious plans under these circumstances.
I may have to stand on the porch and wave goodby to the rest of you.

I PRAY that it never happens!!

[torpedoman]

bugeye I'm like you in many ways but i live rural and have neighbors that will form a support group , outsiders probably will not be welcomed in the area on fact some of the locals who are not armed, prepared or too dumb to let go outside by themselves but real good in their field (real estate, banking computers) may find themselves on their own.

[fatercat]

you must "stand and deliver". and get a bigger gun. be like John Wayne, tell them sonsabitches to fill their hand.

[BUGEYE]

I have a lot of kin in Ill. but in a shtf situation it may be that I can only get as far as the gas in my tank will take me.
my wife and daughter are the ones I worry about. wife is only 54 and daughter is 20.
the preacher at my church is ex marine with a glock sticker on his truck. I helped one elder order some things for his marlin 39,  but everyone else is golfers.  so I don't know if the church would be a haven.

there's really a lot of stuff to worry about.

[mjh]

Theres a good chance that many of us will be in your situation someday as we age and life catches up with us, even a temporary medical condition could put you on the outs if it happend at the time of some kind of disaster/Bug out  situation.   The planning asking and answering question at this point is criticle, traveling after the event could be dicy at best,  establishing local even if informal group could be useful, maybe time to take some fellow church members to the range instead of the golf links, go easy, have fun, if you start out too strong they may back off,  ask your friends questions  like "gee  what would you do it a katrina type situation happend in atlanta, and you couldn't get out?"    Might find a few folks out there who have a shotgun in the closet or a old but usable revolver in the dresser drawer....  oh and I hope you've got more than one .22 firearm for all those rounds, you're gonna need em, might need to arm some helpers too

[Scibaer]

Its sounds as though, you best first option would be to stand firm and barricade  your self in at home.
wait for family/friends or government help to rescue you.
 maybe a home/basement bomb type survival shelter is what you need to wait it out for help.

so with that plan in mind.. do you have a basement ?
can you gather supplies and items for 100 day duration stay ?
are you able to  re-enforce your home/basement or even a crawl space to extended living space ?

[BUGEYE]

I don't want to sound too racist but I'm in a county that is about 20% white, so staying here is not an option.
I have 2, 22autos  1, 22revolver  3, 22rifles, a 20 and 16 shotgun with quite a bit of ammo for the shotguns.
thousands for the 22s.
I usually keep at least 1/2 tank of gas, so I could get down to eatenton or some small community southeast of here.
since nobody here knows me, I will tell you that I have 109 troy ounces of silver bullion, some 10oz bars, some 1oz plus a lot of silver coins. I also save pennies that are 1981 and older which are copper, not zinc.
if the shtf, dollars won't be worth the paper it's printed on.  so in a barter society I could be of help.
I bought the silver back in september for $20 an ounce.  todays price is $30.90
my biggest worry is my daughter who lives on the north side and goes to school.
I pray that there will be enough warning to get her home. I doubt if we could leave without her.

[Victor3]

 Water to the West and miles of city in other directions, there's no place for me to go unless I build a raft and sail to China.

 Who knows what might happen, but some of us city folks assume that a band of bloodthirsty looters is gonna descend and focus on our particular home. With literally millions of homes surrounding me I don't necessarily see that happening, at least not in the 'burbs of the city where I live. Only a small % have the ba!!$ to go out and risk their life to take something from others, at least short term. Most just want to stay home and hold onto what they've already got.

 Going by what I know, I'm pretty sure my neighbors and I will see a danger of bad people coming in time to get together and agree to disuade them. I'll be knocking on doors, asking men if they're willing to help protect our block. If they're not armed but would like to be, I'll provide.

 If it doesn't work out, oh well. Better than just rolling over. At least when all's said and done, maybe a few punks won't be in any condition to rape someone's daughter the next street over.

[fatercat]

sounds like to me you need to make some black friends. whole bunch of them

[jlwilliams]

  If you feel uncomfortable where you are, now is the time to move.  Bugging out in a disaster is a 'might happen later' thing.  Living your life every day is right now.  If you are not happy there, go elsewhere.  There are plenty of smaller communities with hospitals.  You mentioned not wanting to sound racist.  OK, I don't mean to sound it either but here goes.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to live in a community who's racial makeup is more to your liking.  That's why your county is predominantly black.  The people who have moved there did so to be close to relatives and others who they feel close to.  You don't need to feel badly about doing the same.

[bilmac]

You've got one thing going for you, the area you live looks to me to be very compatible to human life. Never very cold, and no need for irrigation to grow just about anything. I would acquire me some land somehow and start figgureing out how to make it as productive as possible. Even a few square feet in a place as productive as you are could keep you fed. If you are hemmed in maybe you need a high fence to block prying eyes at harvest time. If you gotta stay in the city, maybe you can acquire a neighbors property cheap when they "bug out" Maybe they would think that everything would eventually return to "normal" and would rent it to you if you promised to be a good caretaker.

I think food may well be very important in the future. We have been spoiled way too long with cheap food so the way we treat it is almost contemptous. I mean it is sad to see folkes who have a fruit tree in their yard that won't even pick up perfectly good food. I'm afraid that is all gonna change someday sooner than we would think. 

[BUGEYE]

everyone has some great ideas that has gave me and the wife some things to talk about.
I've been taking note of things at the grocery store that could be stored longterm.
I guess I need to start getting some of it when I'm there.  I already stored some multi-vitamins and (thanks to my heart Dr.) a lot of blood thinner.
I just took a pan of muffins out of the oven, which made me think. there is a lot of mixes out there in plastic-like bags that only need water or milk to bake, so dried milk needs to be stored.
you guys have really been a big help.  maybe now I can get organized and make a plan that will work anywhere.
now if I could just get my daughter to move back home.

[bilmac]

Beans and rice keep a long time and are still cheap even though prices are climbing. Grain corn and wheat will last a lot longer than ground and can be used whole like hominy of just cooking wheat for a long time, but if you add a grain mill you can do a lot more things with them. Pastas are cheap and they look like they would keep well, but I'm not sure about that. Surprisingly Ramen noodles are about the cheapest food per oz. in the store if it would keep well.

[Empty Quiver]

You are kidding yourself if you think you're going to leave a major metropolitan area when the SHTF.

They have healthcare in rural areas, really, no kidding. Move away, rip the mirrors off the car. Family is usually the best hope a person has, but I recognise that isn't always the case. As bad as Il. is, and I lived there 34 yrs it would be better than the Atlanta metro area. This is provided you would be south of  US 24 and the entire St Louis area.

I would probably put my efforts into bugging in. Keep a good solid months worth of food, water, meds at hand. Might want to look into hardening the fort, hurricane shutters, excellent quality doors and hardware. Nothing will stop the determined but you can be a pain in the but so to speak.

I'm still fairly young but getting old enough to recognise where I'm headed. Good luck to you.

[Hit or Miss]

Store food, build up a good supply of water.  PM me and I can recommend some great websites for information if you are interested.  I'll post them here if everybody wants to know them. 

If you are physically unable to do very much work then make your specialty KNOWLEDGE!  There will be plenty of able bodied folks who have no clue what to do to make life livable and you would be in a very good position to tell them how to do things.

As a side note, after you announced to the world how much silver you have you should really consider leaving now!  The internet is pretty easy to use to find people for those who know.

[BUGEYE]

hit or miss, that silver is not worth a huge amount so I'm probably safe. besides I'm at home mostly 24/7 and always armed.  that silver might help a small community barter with another community. my thoughts on shtf is that it will be the U.S. going broke and dollars only good for lighting campfires.    in that scenario, I would lose my disability and my delta pension.  we would all be broke, so gold, silver and copper would be our only currency. the country would revert to a barter system.  I would have silver, copper and cartridges to barter.
It just occured to me that if the U.S. goes broke, we'll have all the young soldiers returning home and that could be great to maintain small communities.
I'm making a list of ya'alls ideas and will start to emplement some of them real soon.

[no guns here]

my thoughts on shtf is that it will be the U.S. going broke and dollars only good for lighting campfires.    in that scenario, I would lose my disability and my delta pension.  we would all be broke, so gold, silver and copper would be our only currency. the country would revert to a barter system.

I'm in agreement on this.  I don't see a huge SHTF scenario.  Maybe some local ones, but the USA is a big 'ol place and lots of areas are just too remote to bother with.  If it will hold off for another two years, I'll be set up.

Buggin' out is about recognizing the threat early and getting gone while the getting is good.  Wait too long and you are screwed.  This assumes warning like in a hurricane.  Not a lot of real warning time in some cases like earthquakes, flash floods etc.  Civil unrest should be recognizable early enough to at least prepare for evacuation.


NGH 

[BUGEYE]

my wife said something I hadn't thought of before.   and that is, Rahm Emanual might be the anti-christ.
rahm means supreme and emanual means god.  supreme god?
but, I still think the U.S. going broke is a good bet.

[Pat/Rick]

Not too old to bug out, but I am sure too "beat up" to bug out. I figure I'll stay in place, rural setting. I keep my pantry full, have two water sources with a third a quarter mile away. If TSHTF full blown style I would bring ALL my firewood inside and use it to help "harden" the walls. I would be more interested in reserving what gasoline I had for my roto tiller and chainsaws. I have a couple of neighbors I could/would help or trade with.My daughter and son in law live in the rental house on my same property. I doubt I would ever barter or trade arms and ammo, wouldn't want it used against me. Long term Fan situation? try to set up a local co-op with stock and seeds/garden, everybody works, everybody pulls security, the ol' safety in numbers. I would think that most would resemble a great depression lifestyle though, just neighbors helping neighbors. Let the gooberment handle the cities. My other family members laugh at my lifestyle but they all profess to go to uncle pats if TSHTF. Thats okay, I can arm them as well.

[SHOOTALL]

Ok ya got to go , A truck with camper shell is a good thing to have . A small pop up camping trl would be better. Load the truck and head out. Maybe you have a friend that would allow you to park , a camp sight in a camp ground would work better. There are several living in a camp ground near me that have lost every thing but the camper and what they could carry in it . It was a SHTF time for them as one owned a million dollar house ,

[BUGEYE]

Ok ya got to go , A truck with camper shell is a good thing to have . A small pop up camping trl would be better. Load the truck and head out. Maybe you have a friend that would allow you to park , a camp sight in a camp ground would work better. There are several living in a camp ground near me that have lost every thing but the camper and what they could carry in it . It was a SHTF time for them as one owned a million dollar house ,

last year, down in the oconee national forest, I ran across a guy and his dog living in a small camper. the rangers were not enforcing the time limit because he kept the camp site immaculate. he said he used to be a drummer in a rock band.
he had a friend in jackson or montecello that would bring him food and once a week would bring a fresh charged cell phone and swap out for the dead one. we had a good conversation and I ended up giving him cofee and stuff that I had in my camping stuff.   I have a shell on my truck and could slide a twin mattress in it..  primative, but we could get by for a little while.

[pastorp]

Bugeye, my situation is like yours. If I lose contact with the pharmacy I'll probably die pretty quick.  oh well I've seen most everything I ever wanted to see and enjoyed a lot of friends. I advise you to realize you won't live forever. When the time comes just trust God and take as many of the bad guys with you as you can.

The only reason I went through this last 2 surgeries was for my wife & kids.

Regards,

[chefjeff]

A lot of good advice here. Look at learning some of the old lifetime skills beforehand. Preserving food and living w/o electricity. Who knows how the threat will come ,so be thinking basics first. AIR..WATER..FOOD..PROTECTION. Watch the movie"The Road". Scary stuff. I hope it aint in my lifetime.It can't hurt to be as prepared as possible.

[BUGEYE]

Bugeye, my situation is like yours. If I lose contact with the pharmacy I'll probably die pretty quick.  oh well I've seen most everything I ever wanted to see and enjoyed a lot of friends. I advise you to realize you won't live forever. When the time comes just trust God and take as many of the bad guys with you as you can.

The only reason I went through this last 2 surgeries was for my wife & kids.

Regards,

I'm like you. it's my daughter and wife that I worry about. wife is much younger and my daughter is 20.
I have decided on my bugout rifle. it's a cricket.  weighs 2 1/2 pounds with a 2lb trigger.
when I pick up my savage or sears 43, they feel like they weigh a ton.

[teamnelson]

bugeye, I've been mulling over your thread here for some time. I used to live north of you in Cumming, and hiked all over N.Ga. One thought if you want to bug out is pick one of the more remote campgrounds in the northern mountains, maybe something on the GA section of the AT. There's a walk-in hostel for through hikers that's not too far away from Amicalola falls (used to be a trail volunteer there). Scout it out, find the back routes, and pick a nice spot. I can think of 3 or 4 off the top of my head. I kinda figure anyone on a campground when things get bad is actually in a good spot.

Another idea is scout some commercial property, which won't be a first look for looters especially if its maybe vacant even now. Big metal buildings are less susceptible to fire damage than the wood frame with brick facade that's all over ATL. Consider it a temporary location on your way to somewhere better. I route my long runs through some of those areas where I live now and eyeball the properties that are up for lease.

It would be great if some of the churches thought this through like I know many did for Y2K. The church I was with at the time had a working plan to check on people, stockpile a few things, and set up shelter at the church itself if needs be. Its make a natural base for community, and it really gave the men of the church a good project to work on that most of them felt they could handle.

And I love the cricket, well I have its predecessor the chipmunk. Thanks to your reminding me, its now gonna be my wife's pack rifle when it comes to it. I set up a Contender 16" 223 for my pack, with chamber adapters in 22lr/wmr.

[kynardsj]

We're in a rural area. I keep the pantry's full, guns are clean with plenty of ammo for all. Have friends close by that all say in a shtf scenario they're packing their stuff and coming here. Hope that a strength in numbers thing holds until order can be restored. And yes, at my age I would hate to have to bug out.

[Dweezil]

Have you made friends with your neighbors? Nobody survives alone.