If the shit hit the fan, what would be in your bug out bag?

[CatalinaWOW]

All sad but true. It's astonishing to see videos of a guy trying to sell a genuine 1oz gold coin for $20 to passers-by in a US city, and have no takers.

I don't know how it is in your country, but in the US every weekend the papers have various outfits selling "gold" coins which are actually copper or nickel with a gold wash.  The advert has nearly a full page extolling the value of gold currency, the historical record on gold prices, the collector market for gold coins, the uncirculated nature of these gems and so on.  The fact that there is under 100 micrograms of gold in these coins is in fine print obscurely inserted in the artwork.  Or is even posted as a headline saying that each coin is certified to contain greater than 50 micrograms of genuine gold, counting on much of the population being unable to relate to a quantity like a microgram.  The cable television channels are full of the same thing.

So I would likely walk right by someone selling a gold coin for $20.  At that price it is so likely to be a scam that there really isn't any point in stopping to check.  Probably how most of the other folks who passed it up felt.

[apis]

I suspect people who have never hiked in their life will not get very far if they have to suddenly pack a bag and walk several miles during a disaster. So stay fit and go hiking is probably the first thing anyone who want to prepare for situations like that should do.

Several miles isn't going to do you much good in a large scale city-wide crisis.
If people had to get out of the Sydney basin for example, it's a 50km radius.
Cars would be useless because the few roads out would get choked. A push bike or motor bike is probably the best solution.

You are right, I'm used to think in terms of Swedish miles which are 10 km, so I should have said several tens of miles. (The small town I live in doesn't have a 50km (!) radius though). Bikes sounds like a very good alternative. If you have a motor bike for each family member that would be ideal, otherwise push bikes. Assuming the roads are a viable alternative.

What to bring and how to get out would depend a lot on where you live and what type of disaster has struck though. Evacuating a large city during a flood (like after Katrina) is a whole different set of problems compared to evacuating a town in Sweden after an earthquake in winter for example. But in most scenarios you can probably get around on a bike.

[TerraHertz]

Actually AFAIK there is no "confiscation" provision as such. They can impose all sorts of limits on the sale and transfer of gold though.
And even if it "confiscated", they have to give you the going currency rate for it.

You really should read the actual legislation I linked. The relevant section is not very long, and clear enough.
Yes they can confiscate, and no they wouldn't be paying you anything for it.

Edit: Speaking of SHTF writers like Orlov, here's another I like: http://www.woodpilereport.com/html/index-436.htm

[SkyMaster]

I suspect people who have never hiked in their life will not get very far if they have to suddenly pack a bag and walk several miles during a disaster. So stay fit and go hiking is probably the first thing anyone who want to prepare for situations like that should do.

Several miles isn't going to do you much good in a large scale city-wide crisis.
If people had to get out of the Sydney basin for example, it's a 50km radius.
Cars would be useless because the few roads out would get choked. A push bike or motor bike is probably the best solution.

A gyrocopter would work well



 

[VulcanBB18]

Actually AFAIK there is no "confiscation" provision as such. They can impose all sorts of limits on the sale and transfer of gold though.
And even if it "confiscated", they have to give you the going currency rate for it.

You really should read the actual legislation I linked. The relevant section is not very long, and clear enough.
Yes they can confiscate, and no they wouldn't be paying you anything for it.

Edit: Speaking of SHTF writers like Orlov, here's another I like: http://www.woodpilereport.com/html/index-436.htm

Okay this piqued my interest, so I read the relevant section.

So you are right - they can take any gold you hold, *if* the governor-general makes a proclamation "...for the protection of the currency or of the public credit of the Commonwealth...".  They would have to be some really serious sh!t going down for that to occur, I don't recall any governor-general making even any similar proclamations for anything.

However, they *do* have to pay for you for it.  It says in section 43 "...and the Reserve Bank shall pay for the gold, to the person delivering the gold,..." followed up by section 43 making sure they don't pay you 1c/gram :

"The amount to be paid for any gold delivered in pursuance of section 42 shall be an amount determined in accordance with such price as is fixed and published by the Reserve Bank or, at the option of the person delivering the gold, such amount as is determined in an action for compensation against the Reserve Bank."

So even if they do try the 1c thing, you can determine some sort of other compensation.

Didn't know about any of this, quite interesting.

cheers,

[EEVblog]

You really should read the actual legislation I linked. The relevant section is not very long, and clear enough.
Yes they can confiscate, and no they wouldn't be paying you anything for it.

Okay this piqued my interest, so I read the relevant section.
So you are right - they can take any gold you hold, *if* the governor-general makes a proclamation "...for the protection of the currency or of the public credit of the Commonwealth...".  They would have to be some really serious sh!t going down for that to occur, I don't recall any governor-general making even any similar proclamations for anything.
However, they *do* have to pay for you for it.  It says in section 43 "...and the Reserve Bank shall pay for the gold, to the person delivering the gold,..." followed up by section 43 making sure they don't pay you 1c/gram :

That was my reading of it as well when I read it many years ago. They can't just "confiscate" it without just payment.
The idea behind the law as I understand it is that the government might one day have to take back gold in order to have a gold backed currency again for *insert reason here*.
The odds of that happening are practically zero, and the only other time it's happened in modern history AFAIK is in 1933 in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
And they paid you a going rate for your gold.

[GEuser]

There was one time (and probably more) when they took/confiscated your radio's , aluminum , spare steel and other stuff so Gold would also be nothing unusual .

[VulcanBB18]

There was one time (and probably more) when they took/confiscated your radio's , aluminum , spare steel and other stuff so Gold would also be nothing unusual .

Cite?  I don't recall any compulsory confiscation of any of those items in history except in extreme cases like Nazi Germany....

cheers,

[GEuser]

There was one time (and probably more) when they took/confiscated your radio's , aluminum , spare steel and other stuff so Gold would also be nothing unusual .

Cite?  I don't recall any compulsory confiscation of any of those items in history except in extreme cases like Nazi Germany....

cheers,

Well you have just mentioned one , that's in history , maybe you had better read a bit more , cite history you got a few years worth of typing , sounds like you want to argue over something .

[David Spicer]

If SHTF and you live in a metropolis then:

1) Your next door neighbours, (The nice couple whose kids you mind occasionally) will kill you and steal everything
2) There will be no "Authorities" to steal any stash of something (Gold etc). Bands of armed vigilantes will roam the streets, killing without fear or favour for food, girls, barterables  etc. The only safe course will be to join them and look the other way a lot.
4) You won't be able to run from a metropolis or escape in a gyro copter. It will have been "liberated" or just stolen last night.Besides, you probably haven't refuelled it since last joyride.


I could go on. The woodpile report website has various nuggets of genuinely useful advise:

Stay away from crowds
A hungry man has only one problem
Don't be there, you won't get away unless you, a) are lucky b) are young, fit and have SAS type training, c) have a Nine and ammo d) are Tom Cruise

A long way from eevblog threads. So in keeping with the narrative maybe a very good knowledge of Radio, Solar power and Sattelite comms might be handy too. Not a bad idea to brush up on AM transponders.

[Alex Eisenhut]

I'd get a plow.

[kwass]

I'd get a plow.

Thanks for the memory of this great television series, it was a redo or sorts of the earlier and more upbeat series the Ascent of Man.
Both good series to have memorized and taken to heart when the SHTF.  But since we can't memorize all the content we'll need perhaps a good bug out bag item would be various survival guide books, that explain how to plow, make rope, identify clean water, etc., etc..

[SkyMaster]

A lot of people seem to associate the "bug out bag" trend with the prepper culture.

While the preppers are getting ready to be able to survive on their own for an extended period of time.

The "bug out bag" is intended to get you going for a short period of time when an emergency happens. The emergency would not be a war, and certainly not a nuclear war.

The Canadian Red Cross has a "72 hours Preparedness Guide", which, except for the phone numbers, could be useful for anybody on the planet.
www.redcross.ca/crc/documents/3-1-2-1_-72-hour-guide.pdf

And to the naysayer, how do you handle simple problems like; electricity is out, no water is coming out of the faucet, car does not start, store only accept cash and ATM machine is not working, shoelace breaks as you tie your shoes, etc. Can you handle these very simple "emergencies"? Are you prepared?

And, in the true spirit of EEVblog forum, everybody should throw a pocket multimeter in their bug out bag 

[m98]

And to the naysayer, how do you handle simple problems like; electricity is out, no water is coming out of the faucet, car does not start, store only accept cash and ATM machine is not working, shoelace breaks as you tie your shoes, etc. Can you handle these very simple "emergencies"? Are you prepared?

Let's see:
1. Hm, might go mountain biking today/romantic dinner ahead/ah, fuck it, just get the gas soldering iron out/go to sleep
2. Let's buy some bottled water/get some from one of the local natural water springs, thanks god I haven't brought the empty bottles back yesterday/oh shit, I have, just use a bucket and some shrink-wrap/thick trash bags/water canister for water transport
3. Hm, just use the bike/train/bus/taxi/walk/call a friend/stay home/call the roadside assistance/call the roadside assistance from one of the many emergency telephones along the highway/just get someone to stop and help
4. Use another ATM/sorry, only bread and water today/that guy owns me 50€ since month/I always have some money in my pocket because here in Germany it's common that stores only accept cash
5. Just replace the shoelaces/use one of the other pairs of shoes/use the crocs/some say it's healthy to walk barefoot, why not try it out?

So, yeah, you don't really need to be "prepared". Just act reasonably and use common sense.
And really, before some Canadian finds his "Preparedness Guide" in some drawer anywhere in the house, I would've already cleaned the fan of and sit in the garden drinking some cold beer.

Wait, did you just call broken shoelaces a "emergency"? Geez...

[Stray Electron]

You'll need knowledge so take the internet.

   In my day, we called them books and they worked without electricity.  Amazing!

[jh15]

I read this paperback in the 70's and to this day I think of it when away from my back yard.

Also took a backwoods emergency medical course much later.

I couldn't take a test on any of this stuff now, but I bet I could stop a sucking chest wound or add crushed ants to spice up some rabbit blood soup.

I'm sure I have the book packed away, but at these prices, may as well put it in my Kindle. When the bombers come, I'll print it out and laminate in tiny type to use with the magnifier on my compass.
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=Mx5m-p5Hr_kC&source=productsearch&utm_source=HA_Desktop_US&utm_medium=SEM&utm_campaign=PLA&pcampaignid=MKTAD0930BO1&gl=US&gclid=COnknNvcq84CFctONwodBXII0A&gclsrc=ds

[Red Squirrel]

My Siglent scope, nobody messes with a ginger carrying around something that looks super advanced to the average person.

If push comes to shove I can do an impromptu tear down and slice an attacker with the rusty edges of the inside chassis. 

[jh15]

Should be tough enough to do the equivalent of a keyboard face strike.

[SkyMaster]

My Siglent scope, nobody messes with a ginger carrying around something that looks super advanced to the average person.

If push comes to shove I can do an impromptu tear down and slice an attacker with the rusty edges of the inside chassis.

And then Tetanus would slowly kill the attacker 

[jh15]

Didn't think of that... don't step on a rusty scope.

[sidlas]

this must be in preper forum,but if something happens tommorow..
ak47+9mm+ handgun+ammo from safe
bagged allready:
water filters
knife,waterproof matches etc
gas masks
some water
some clothes
some mre meals
ligthers,solar radio,solar flashlights,solar charger
some medicament's
there is more i dont remember whats in it   

[bc888]

If the shit hit the fan, what test equipment would be in your bug out bag? Lets assume you can only take what you can carry on your back... so no Tek mainframes. Also it should be water resistant, and also be able to survive EMI from a gamma ray burst, EMP, or solar flare.

I suppose it depends how one interprets "SHTF". Where I live on the west coast of the USA, the local governments are setting up teams of trained volunteers to spring into action in the event of a major earthquake. For that event, as we live in a large but weak old home: we built a 2nd home on the property and designed as if it was sitting on the worst fault in California ready to take the worse earthquake known to man. No earthquake will take it down, although we laughed when the architect, a survivor of the Vietnam war, correctly noted that maybe (house fall on top of it". He could have also said: "wood framed structures can still burn".

The most likely scenario, much more likely than the earthquakes/tsunamis that the governments are preparing for here, is a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) or an EMP (ElecroMagnetic Pulse). It surprises me to see how casual you engineers and scientist types seem to take this. Perhaps as it is relatively easy to prepare for, yet all of you seem to simply be sitting back and will be up shit creek without a paddle when it comes. And it will come, make no mistake about that.

I read recently that a scientist studying actual Carrington type events (AKA CME or Coronal Mass Ejection - don't google "Charlemagne" style events or you'll be curled up in a ball in the closet) concluded that strictly based on the historical evidence, there is a 12% chance that in the next 10 years we have a CME. LINK TO GET YOU STARTED https://www.exopolitics.org/impending-solar-flash-event-supported-by-scientific-studies-insider-testimony/That 12% number excludes a EMP where Kim Jong or Xi goes for a HEMP (High altitude Electro-magnetic Pulse) sneak attack. 12% that the sun/natural process's alone will do us in. That essential means that a child born today will likely (but not 100%) see his/her/its world get all of it's electronics fried in his/her's/it's lifetime.

I'd urge you to google Carrington Event and start there. It's hard to imagine a world where most of the devices we depend on are fried in a fraction of a second and instantly inoperable. OK, in regards to the OP's question: I'm not bugging out. At least, not right away. We have rain barrels off of the roofs for hundreds of gallons of water stored and multiple water filters. We live in a wet environment where any water we take will be replaced in any month except
August which might be dry, there is a river less than 1/2 a mile from me and it's full of fish, our basement has over a years worth of food stored in it and I have 10 down coats here. Should I grab a bag that would fit none of that and only perhaps a single down coat? Nope. I'm staying. My tools are here, my stuff is here.

That said, we have bought another place where the food is abundant and there are friendly neighbors. It is a 5 day walk from our home in the city, less than that if you take a bicycle. It is thick with wildlife: clams, oysters, seaweeds and literally has deer that sleep in the backyard with massive elk herds nearby. I am terraforming with native foods like Camas which is not recognizable by most folks as food. I don't doubt that we will survive either a CME or a EMP, despite what the government notes about 70-90% of Americans dying if a single EMP hits us. I have Faraday cages in both locations. Watching Dave solder with a TS80 made me realize that I could use that to scrounge for electronic components if I could have one survive the 50,000 volts or whatever the Chinese LINK TO GET YOU STARTED (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/china-develops-weapons-to-fry-us-electric-grid-eyes-high-tech-pearl-harbor-attack)are up to these days. Here is the list of crap at the remote location which is protected and expected to survive an EMP::

Anker Solar Panel
Unknown Solar Panel/charger 60watts
Solar charger
TS80 Soldering Pen with QC3.0 wall plug and 3 extra tips (this will run off of a QC3.0 powerbank)
Radio - Tecsun PL 880
Solar Radio
Baofeng empty AA and aa battery holders 2 of each)
Baogfeng antennas - 1 is toss into the tree and 1 standard
Flashlight - shake it to light it up
Flashlight -mini
Flashlight -Thorfire VG10
4 (total) Olight USB battery chargers
Xtar PB2 Battery Charger
2 flashlights (S2 Convoy?)
Amprobe Line splitter Volt Checker
2 ea Uni-t 210B Clamp Meter
Fluke 101
2 Motorola Walkie Talkies
Baofeng 5Ra Portable Ham radio
Samsung  phone with charger
EBL 9V battery charger
2ea Fluke 27/FM multimeters
1 Fluke high voltage probe
TS80 soldering pen set
Xtar VC2 Plus charger
Xtar VC4 battery charger

These items in Battery Bag on top of the garbage can ***cough***Faraday Cage*** cough** and should be checked annually or recharged

Blitzwolf QC3.0 Powerbank 10,000 Mah
Xiaomi    “      “        “               “
Anker       “      “        “               “
Anker      “      “      “
3 ea Baofeng batteries for 5RA radio
Soshine 9V charger USA plug, with 4 ea 9V batteries
AA Batteries (@ 19). 2 in charger, 2 in plastic wrap (were not charged)
TS100 Soldering Pen plus 1 tip
Baofeng 5Ra plus battery (fully charged these batteries are 8.33. After a year in storage they drop to 8.13V)
1- EBL USB 9V charger and 2 batteries
4 - Aneng cheapo battery powered soldering pens.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It seem to me that this group, more than any other, should be bracing and preparing for the coming storm. Even if you took a single multimeter and wrapped it up with multiple layers of tinfoil (with no batteries), you'd be so much more able to face the future. If we get lucky and it doesn't hit, we sit on a rocking chair on the front porch and drink beer while watching the deer. The foil wrapped multimeters go obsolete. Big deal.

[cliffyk]

My Bushmaster:




and as much ammo as i could carry--anything else I'l be able to "get" along the way...

[ivaylo]

Is that to shoot yourself?

[cliffyk]

Is that to shoot yourself?

If needed, but I am fortunate as they tell me I have at best 2-3 more years to deal with this current Bull Shit. But, I do feel very sad for my grand- and great-grandchildren, it looks more and more as though the greatest nation this world has ever known is going down. The personal responsibility required by true liberty and freedom are to much for average people to handle.

Democracies an Democratic Republics fall apart when people find they can vote themselves boons from other people's wallets...