Bug-out bag
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Bug-out Bag is not a survival kit. A bug out bag is meant to be grabbed and run with. The intent is to provide you the gear that you need to make your escape to some pre-determined safe location(s). A survival kit is meant to survive in a location. Your safe location(s) should provide for your survival, ie: a cottage that is well stocked, or a friends place far away. The intent of the bug out bag is to prevent you from having to run around looking for things to take with you, during the event itself. It also relies on your previous planning.
Survival kits are not Bug Out Bags. You can combine them if you wish, but they have two distinct goals, that you should not confuse.
The name "Bug-out Bag" derives from the fact that the bag should contain everything one would wish to take with you if, because of a disaster, one needs to abandon one's home (Bug-out). The name "72hr kit" derives from the fact that it may take emergency services up to seventy two hours to provide you with any assistance and so one will need to keep enough supplies in the bag to last this long.
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[edit] Rationale
If a natural or other disaster, causes a person to leave home quickly, everything one needs has already been collected. It may take up to seventy two hours for emergency services to reach civilians and provide assistance, so preparing this kit ALSO should provide a person with enough water until help arrives. Food is nice, but should be restricted to energy bars that offer alot of energy and weigh very little. Remember, at you might be driving out of an emergency with your BOB, but you might have to ditch your vehicle and carry your BOB. Be realistic about what you can carry for long periods of time.
There are significant differences between a survival kit and a bug out bag. Regardless of what people believe, the differences is in the use of the kit. A survival kit is put together to address a survival situation. If you live in Alaska and your survival kit is for the jungle, you will be in trouble. Just as a BOB is meant to LEAVE QUICKLY, not hang around dealing with household emergencies as stated above.
The correct use of a BOB, or any type of survival kit depends on the type of emergency planning or evacuation planning you have made.
A bug out bag is best defined by using an example of having to evacuate a high rise office building during an "event". The BOB would include items such as self contained breathing aparatus (SCUBA) and possibly a GPS unit with important landmarks identified such as: bus stations, subway stations, ferries, airports, taxi stands, car rental locations etc.
Imagine you were in the one of the twin towers during 9-11, what would you want in your safety kit? A shovel? An axe? or, rope, flashlight, air, towels, med kit etc?
You can't put everything you could possibly need for every possible event in your BOB. You need to determine what you are planning for. The BOB is meant to provide for your ESCAPE, not your living once you are safe. A bug out plan will help you determine what should go in your BOB. Remember, a BOB is meant to get you out of immediate danger, not sustain your life in a safe location.
A survival kit at home is totally different because it is not designed for you to leave your home, but rather to stay and bunker down. You wouldn't put a blanket in your home safety kit because your home is probably filled with blankets. On the other hand, a wool blanket in your BOB is probably not a bad idea if you live in a cold region, but a useless item if you live in florida. A home safety kit should contain items that will allow to seal up your home, like duct tape, plastic wrap, and, does not suffer the constraint of weight or size. Your home kit can weigh 500 lbs and be the size of your garage if you want, a BOB can't because you need to be able to carry it.
[edit] Contents
Suggested contents for a 72hr kit have been created by many organisations, including:
- NSW SES (Australia).
- Dept. of Homeland Security (USA).
- FEMA (USA).
- The American Red Cross
[edit] Commentary on Suggested Contents
A bug out bag is intended to get you from point A to point B, or C, or D depending on the situation. The BOB is not meant for survival long term. That is called a survival kit. The best scenario is for your plans to include evacuating to a cottage in the woods that you own. At the cottage, you keep all the survival gear you need for long term. Most people don't have that, but the point is, your BOB is for evacuation, and your survival kit is for survival, do not confuse the two.
A better example is 9-11. A BOB for someone who would be working in one of the towers would not include MRE's. Seriously, think about it, the BOB is meant to get you out of the burning building, not give you a hot meal in the middle of a fire.
Too many people confuse a BOB with survival kits, as demonstrated by the information that I found in this post.
[edit] Bug Out Planning
First, putting together a bug out bag is alot like building a house, if you don't understand what you need, your going to end up with something that won't meet your needs. The most important aspect of a bug out bag is not the contents, but the planning that went into it.
Before you run off and buy anything, you need to sit down and do some bug out planning. If you don't, you will end up with an item that will probably not save your life, but slow you down and complicate simple decisions.
These are the proper steps to put together a bug out bag:
1) plan the emergencies your BOB will address, be prepared to have more than one BOB in different locations.
2) assemble gear that will assist you in your evacuation plans, that were defined in your planning.
3) prepare a training plan for every item in your BOB, if you put a medical kit in your BOB and you don't know how to use what is in it, you should remove it, it will be dead weight. If you put in pepper spray, take self-defence classes. If you put in a GPS unit, then go get trained on orienteering. If you put in a flint and steel, go practice or get trained on starting fires. If you plan on escaping to the woods as part of your evacuation to address civil unrest (example) then go get some wilderness survival training. Etc.
If you search google for bug out bags you will find some websites that know what bug out bags are for, and they are not cheap. The information that you gather and learn when it comes to bug out bags and the effective use of one is more important than what you put in your BOB. You need to be educated. In the medical kit post on this page, someone talks about sutures. Great idea, but honestly, most people will not know how to do that, or be willing to do it, a compress is probably all that should be expected. The point is, ask youself if you would be willing to suture yourself or someone else, if the answer is NO, then don't buy a big fancy medical kit, instead, get a small one with simple items you are willing to use. BE HONEST.
Remember this: if you ever do need your BOB, then you will not be in the middle of a "romantic" event. Many people see these types of things are heroic etc and in reality, they are the worst things you can suffer through and be realistic about what you believe you could do. Would you jump out of one of the twin towers if you had a "base jumping" parachute on? I would. If you would rather die than do that, don't carry one in your office BOB.
[edit] Food options
For a BOB, MRE's are too heavy and don't give enough energy. You can carry the same weight in energy bars and get alot more energy for them. A survival kit could contain MREs, sure, but not a BOB. A BOB is meant for exit strategies and unfortunatly an MRE doesn't contain enough energy for the size and weight. Stick with water and energy bars instead. Put the MRE in your safety kit instead.
[edit] Water preparation
Most people do not understand the demand for water that is placed on their bodies every day, regardless of an emergency. The truth is, without drinking any liquid, you will be dead in about 3 days. You can go for weeks without food, but not water.
The truth is that water exists in just about every location on earth. Even the desert. The best advice you can get about water as it relates to your bug out bag is get some training on how to decontaminate water sources. The truth is, you can't carry enough water for long term survival. You will have to acquire water during your survival. Your BOB should carry some water, but water is VERY heavy and if you carry too much of it, you could end up without items in your BOB that you can't find just about everywhere, like medical supplies, weapons, rope etc. You might not believe this, but water is just about everywhere, if you know how to find it.
In order to survive, you need to URINATE 2 liters of liquid a day, so if you drink only coffee, thats alot more than 2 liters, if you only drink water, then thats about 2 liters of water. That equals about 5 lbs, roughly. so a 3 day BOB would require 15 lbs of water. That's alot of weight. A week of water would weigh about 45 lbs and that should be just about the entire weight of your BOB.
Learn how to treat different water sources and carry the tools to do so, like water purification tablets (the water tastes terrible but you can also carry tablets to get rid of the taste of the purification). You can get small water purification tools that are easily carried, just keep in mind that unlike your tap water filteration system, these filters are more expensive, and must be replaced alot sooner than 6 months. Keep spare filters.
Learn how to purify really dirty mucky water, it can be done, and, in case you didn't know it, the putrid water that katrina left behind was an excellent source of water for drinking, if you knew what to do. The quick explaination of that is: you need to boil that putrid water and capture the condensate that it produces, because that is 100% pure water. Knowledge.
Perhaps carrying a pot to boil water in is more effective than carrying 45 lbs or water. A fuel source to boil water is important and can be lightweight but, stuff that you can burn to create a fire is just about everywhere on the planet. During katrina, there was wood everywhere, so perhaps learning how to start fires with wet wood, or thinking about what you can burn that is readily available is more important than carrying a propane stove with you in your BOB.
As seen in the New Orleans Hurricane Katrina disaster, potable water often becomes unattainable in emergency situations, particularly during large scale natural disasters affecting the water supply. Scenes of military helicopters airdropping cases of bottled water should make it clear how important clean water is.
Water can be prepared by boiling, filtering, or chemical treatment. Any of these are suitable if you make sure to follow instructions. It is best to not rely on one in preparation because you do not know what your circumstances will be when a disaster hits. For example, if you can't find fuel, how will you boil water? (break the wooden table apart!)
Some Bug-out Bags (BoB) will have a heat source for multiple-uses (sterilization, cooking and water boiling), a small water filter pack, and chemical treatment. You may even use non-scented chlorine laundry bleach in SMALL ratios. This means 8 drops per gallon, depending on how bad the water is. If you use commercial bleach, let the water sit over night so that the bleach evaporates, or, go to a pet store and buy the de-chlorination treatment for your fish tank and use that and drink your water right away. If you try to buy water treatment items from a survival store, you will pay through the nose, however, pet stores realize you won't spend $25 for a small vial of de-chlorination tablets/liquid, its the same thing, just like you, your fish can't drink chlorine straight up.
[edit] First aid and extended care
This is really two separate categories, but they use the same tools, which is why they are listed together.
First aid is the initial treatment of wounds which will then be handled by professionals. CPR is first aid, but intubation and hospital care is not. When a disaster strikes you may be required to give both first aid and extended care. Dressing a wound, setting a broken bone or closing a gash with a surgical suture are all, despite common perceptions, first aid.
First aid kits should have enough to do basic suturing. A military field surgery kit has all you need to do wound care. Likewise, simple items like bandages, aspirin, antibiotics (internal and topical) are all vital.
If you can, get some training. The Red Cross, St. John Ambulance and other organizations offer courses for first aid, and you may consider organizing your neighborhood and hiring a professional to give some training. If you can't do this, you should at least have a book showing how to do first aid.
Extended care is the step after first aid. If you're in a disaster, help might be days or even weeks away. Knowing how to take care of someone who is injured will likely save their life. This is often difficult because you never know what will happen or how bad the injury will be. Again, training and having a resource on hand is vital.
[edit] Medicines for those dependent
If you or a family member has asthma, diabetes or any other chronic illness which requires medication you should store a good supply of it. If you can, hermetically seal it in plastic with no air and put it in your freezer (Consult with your pharmacist before doing this for a particular medication). Medicines, like all chemicals, oxidize over time. Vacuum-packing them and sealing them in the freezer slows this down just like when you freeze food. Its always a good idea to include desiccant within the vacuum bagging to minimize/eliminate humidity.
[edit] High energy snacks
The videos of Hurricane Katrina victims walking miles in waist-deep water or paddling canoes is evidence of the need for high energy food. You may have to move -- quickly -- to get to safety and your trip may be hours or even days. Having high-sugar, high-carb snacks available which you can get to easily will help.
One is most likely to need to do this immediately following the disaster. Moving quickly means having the energy to do so. Make sure these are on the top of your 72hr kit and that you have enough to last 2-3 days (3-4 items per person per day, equivalent to one granola bar and one chocolate bar each). Don't worry about the health aspect of it -- if you are fleeing a disaster, the last thing you need to worry about is your waistline.
Diabetics especially should prepare for this and double the number of available snacks appropriately. Having a mix of different sizes and types is best (i.e. small sweets in the mix).
[edit] Defensive tools
In some scenarios in which Bug out Bags would be useful, such as riots or terrorism, there is a possibility of a breakdown in civil order. As such there is a potential for violence and some feel that weapons are a necessary part of any BoB. Any decision to include a weapon must be weighed by the amount of training previously received, the potential for accidents, the legality of varying weapons and possible escalation of any stressful situation to include (deadly) violence.
Firearms are the modern weapon of choice in such states and countries where they are available and legal, although there is great debate over how many and what type should be included in any Bug out Bags. Pepper spray may be effective defensively against animals, humans included. Disaster shelters rarely allow any form of a weapon.
Knives are almost always included in Bug out Bags. In addition to usage as a weapon, knives are multi-purpose tools that can also be used as a cutting instrument, a hunting spear, a glass breaker, and a steel, which in combination with flint can be used for fire starting, among other uses.
[edit] Shelter
Shelter can be as simple as a tarpaulin and complex as a quality backpacking tent. In either case, ensure that some form of protection from the elements is included in your BoB plans.
[edit] Emergency Literature
Since it is not possible to memorise everything one needs to know in a disaster, every 72hr kit should contain some literature which explains what to do in various situations. This literature should be obtained from professionals who deal with the sort of emergency one is seeking information on. Some examples available online include:
[edit] General
- Dept. of Homeland Security (USA).
- FEMA (USA).
- The American Red Cross.
[edit] Fire
- NSW Rural Fire Service (Australia).
- NSW Fire Brigade (Australia).
[edit] Pandemic
- Dept. of Health (Australia).
[edit] Storms
- NSW SES (Australia).
