Thanks Jennywren and CR. I do want to point out that there’s also a huge difference between a hoard and the joyful clutter of daily living. I’m certainly not proposing the minimalism I’ve adopted in reaction to my parents hoarding! I think it’s safe to say you’re NOT a hoarder if: you aren’t in danger of a visit from the city inspectors, you take out the trash regularly, you can easily get to your bed and sleep on the entirety of it, your possessions are not kept in piles (a shape resembling a mountain or snowdrifts up walls), electrical outlets are accessible or you at least know where they are and if you had a rodent enter you would be able to see evidence immediately and be willing address the problem. My 3M half mask with the P100 filters from my BOB have come in handy for the occasional purges. I never go home without it.

I really like your post even though it touches on a sore spot. Sadly I come from parents that suffer from the clinical definition of hoarding. Before I visit I have to binge watch a few episodes of “Hoarders” to de-sensitize myself. From personal experience, I believe there is a wide difference between a true prepper and a hoarder. A prepper is motivated by acting on a plan and a hoarder is compelled by (ostensibly) OCD which is apparent by their hoard that’s usually haphazard/random. (Although my mom has small collections of odd things like carefully washed and stacked styrofoam trays that chicken and meat are sold on. Why?!!!)  This is a terrible inheritance and heavy burden (figuratively and literally) my parents are leaving my siblings, me and their grandson. As a result I’ve become a minimalist. If it doesn’t add function, beauty, safety or necessity to our lives it doesn’t belong. The pandemic taught me how to moderate that and we made accommodations for strategic stockpiling. I’ve joined a Facebook Buy Nothing group to get rid of items and incur less waste. I started my Swedish Death Cleaning at 40 so I can concentrate on cleaning my parents house when the time comes. (Among one of the more ridiculous things I have to buy in preparation is a metal detector to check all the clothes for hidden jewelry :0)

Thank you Bob! Be safe.

Hiya Bob, Thank you sir! Although CERT is on hold right now for the pandemic, I’ve signed up for the next session.  As for California all are based on quantitative vs qualitative research: Most factual: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California From 2019 but has financial cred: https://www.forbes.com/places/ca/?sh=70e7f9a43fef A recent opinion article: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-14/california-defies-doom-with-no-1-u-s-economy

Robert, thanks for the silcock key! Watched a Youtube video to see how it works and just ordered 5 of them. 3 for our BOB’s and 2 for our cars. Nice!

Hello my fellow Californian Prepper! I agree Jonnie, relocating isn’t an option, where are we gonna go? Pick your poison and I happen to like the 72 and sunny (albeit flammable and earthquake prone) poison. Plus I love my family and want to be close to them. Besides, being the most populous state in the nation (12%) means we have a lot of company (I think including the founders of thepreparded.com), with the 5th largest economy in the world we have a lot of resources, the third largest state so we have room to roam/run if need be and we have a coastline so we have one more exit strategy than landlocked states.  I too have been thinking of finding a IRL (In Real Life) prepper group. The conundrum is, preppers like us are everyday people. We’re underground, we don’t wear camo to the grocery store, have a t-shirt that says “I heart water purification tablets” or take walks with our BOB’s. Being a woman I’m concerned about keeping my distance from the agro’s so would like the chance to suss out the people before actually making contact. Call it cautious female surveillance. My plan is to sign up for our City CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) Training. It’ll give me a chance to meet people in my immediate geographical area who are at least likeminded individuals. Training is over 3 Saturdays for 6 hours each day so that’ll give me a chance to really get to know the people in the training. Or it’ll be a bust, and I’ll just have a chance to brush up on my CPR skills and learn what are my City’s Disaster Preparedness Plans.

Hi Illini, I think the reason why you don’t see more posts about sheltering in place is because the Original Poster’s question was about bugging out in urban vs wilderness environments. But I’m sure glad you brought it up. A very important part of our prepping.

Great fact Bob! Adequate public health facilities are not symptomatic to only urban environments. Consider the beautiful rural state of Idaho with a population of 1,839,000 which is a little less than the amount of people in the urban city of Houston, Texas. Yesterday, Idaho officials activated “crisis standard of care” which allows overwhelmed facilities to ration treatment if needed. Idaho joins Alaska’s (a fellow rural state) largest hospital operating under crisis standards. The exporting of Idaho patients to Washington state is putting pressure on that state’s healthcare system. Please care for yourselves prepper friends, now’s a bad time to get injured and need to go to the hospital :(.

Hi Bill, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Benjamin Franklin was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony who ruled it from afar. And the legislature was trying to tax the Penn family lands to pay for frontier defense during the French and Indian War. And the Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he actually meant purchase a little temporary safety, very literally. The Penn family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General Assembly’s acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it. If anything, it’s a pro-taxation and pro-defense spending quotation. More explicitly it is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it’s almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means.

I have to agree Jonnie Pekelny. I’d like to believe I’m a trustworthy person and that many other people are too. In a survival situation, ideally I want to be around other folks helping them and them helping me. Studies with empirical evidence have shown that generally humans don’t thrive in isolation and I kinda of believe that. Why else would a punishment in prison be solitude? Sure there’s always exceptions to the rule. But I for one would never turn down the company of good character, a strong mind, another pair of arms and an honest heart when we’re all in a tight spot.

We did a tour in Ft. Hood, Texas. And once during a drill, the ears on my bunny slippers got hung up in the rungs of the emergency ladder when we lived in Ft. Richardson, Alaska. That was the end of bunny slippers!

I’m in a similar predicament. At 5ft tall and weighing just 105lbs, a 20lb BOB is almost a quarter of my weight. I’m always trying to find ways to lighten my BOB. What good is a BOB if you die trying to carry it? As a woman I perceive more inherent danger in isolation and what my Dad taught me since I was young is to join a family group if at all possible. But most importantly, to avoid anyone or groups wearing camo or appearing military-istic, which is ironic since he’s an enlisted man and I was born and raised US Army. What does that say when a soldier doesn’t trust his brothers in arms around his daughter? I also live in an urban environment (and EQ country–one of the heaviest items in my BOB is a small crowbar. I can use it to pry open a door, break open a window, as a weapon and to dig out). And per Wikipedia so does four-fifths of the US population, so I guess we’ll be figuring it out all together :). In the meantime I’m signing up for my local CERT program once they start up post-pandemic. Also, I enjoyed reading about everyones window ladders! We had those my entire life and dragged them around moving every three years to new posts. At each new home Dad would put those at every bedroom window and have a drill. At night. In our pajamas. Ultimate. Embarrassment. :0

Hi Didda, I love all the information you’ve gotten here so far. Especially the advice on how to stockpile medication!  I’ve been prepping since my childhood as an Army Brat. It was my chore to keep the family kits up to date. Once I had left home and begun life as a starving art student I still prepped for myself.  I started simple with the stuff I had around: pink JanSport backpack from high school, old sweats, ripped hoodie, ugly knit gloves, a beat pair of low top Chuck Taylors stuffed with socks, a couple cans of tuna, six 12oz. Arrowhead water bottles, can opener, free matches from the liquor store, emergency blanket, working beat-up flashlight, transistor radio, batteries, tampons that had been riding around in my purse for too long, lots of napkins from McDonalds (tinder), old facecloth, bandana, baseball cap, a couple of trash bags, complimentary hotel shampoo/conditioner/soap/sewing kit, aspirin, bandaids, free map from AAA and a cheap compass from the hardware store checkout line. Extra cash was hard for me to come by, I had $5 in coins. I considered that a victory. I built my first aid kit in a very roundabout way. I put my aspirin and bandaids in a sandwich bag and brought them along to my next doctors appointment. At the end of the appointment I asked my doctor if he had any recommendations for what to add to my EQ emergency kit. He came back with a plastic bag full of supplies, medical scissors, and a bunch of medication samples. I hit the first aid holy grail! That was decades ago. As a parent I now prep for my non-Army family :). On every January 17 (the anniversary of the Northridge EQ), I inventory the BOBs and the SIP (Shelter In Place) and list what needs replacing and upgrading. On the 17th of every month, I buy or replace something on the list, every three months I replenish the kits with the new items I’ve gotten, that way it’s not a big project, it’s part of everyday life.  One of the best ways I save money prepping is by joining a Facebook page for the local group in my area called “Buy Nothing”. It’s a cooperative where people in the same geographical area give stuff to each other that they no longer need/want.  But the point of all this is to do something–anything—it’s not a contest for who’s the best prepped or who has the best gear. It’s just that it’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. Oh, and don’t fret too much about your disability, you may very well outlive us all in a shtf scenario. I believe your superpower might be that you’re not a threat. 

Sadly, I haven’t come across any resources like that but I’m a born and raised Asian American Army brat who’s been prepping since I was little. I’ve lived in places from Alaska to Okinawa and my Dad has always told us this same thing: Blend into a mixed race crowd that looks safe. Don’t join a white crowd, you could be a single target. Don’t join an all minority crowd, you’re part of a big target. Keep your head on a swivel. No white or bright colors. No all black outfits. No camo (he was often wearing camo or fatigues when giving this lecture, ha!) Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, California and Washington were the states that Dad taught us the difference between rural and city. We’d take family car trips (like the Alcan Highway) where he was careful to point out how we were treated racially in these types of towns. College towns are the best of city towns. Higher education equals higher tolerance in my experience (or maybe they’re just desensitized to prejudging from all the types of people they’re surrounded by daily). But having said that there are exceptions and frightened people do scary things education or not, so again keep your head on a swivel. When we were little kids these were the rules: If we got separated: 1st choice-join a family, 2nd-join a woman, 3rd-join a couple, 4th-Fireman, paramedic, doctor, nurse, but not police, 5th-military in uniform (to confirm check their boots) and declare Dad’s name, rank and division. For us girls, Dad insisted we kept hair ties in our BOB’s to keep our hair tied back. Also we wore baseball caps and tucked our ponytails in the back of our shirts (they were too long to fit into our caps) to keep us nondescript and so no one could grab us by our ponytails. Hope Dad’s advice helps you too.

Water heater mineral deposits! We have such hard water that our water heater starts making a banging noise when there’s lots of build-up. Our plumber installed a brass faucet, taught me how to turn off our water heater, connect an old hose and drain it down the driveway every 2-3 years (tried to recycle the water, but the hot water burns the lawn and plants). When we last needed to replace our water heater I considered a tankless but discovered I would have to descale+clean the filter every 2 years anyway. Plus would lose my 50 gallon back-up water to boot. I keep a small metal kitchen strainer in a ziplock bag inside the water heater closet to strain the deposit if we ever need the water.

In my excitement I forgot to ask my question. Does our 50 gallon strapped water heater count as another home water source? I had a brass nozzle installed for easy on/off just in case.

I was so excited to read the NY Times article about your website I came straight over! I’ve been prepping since I was 5 years old. I’m a born and raised Army Brat and my primary duty was to check, update and refresh the C-rations and evac kit. Granted, my Dad did most of the work when I was little and I just helped, then later just I followed his list and reported back. My first adult BOB was just stuff gathered from around the house and put in one bag. As I started to make more money, my second was loosely based on The Red Cross Earthquake Kit and a few others. Starting with the most important, I buy one item each month on the anniversary of the Northridge earthquake. I’ll be improving and refining my family’s bags based on your lists! It’s a slow process, but it’ll eventually get done, gives me time to carefully consider each item and I always think of my Dad and wish I could report back.