Should you 'bug out' if the stuff hits the fan?

Flooding in Louisiana

Why we prep

Here's another reason why you – and your friends and family – should prep:

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Thousands evacuated as deadly flood wreaks havoc in Louisiana

Flooding due to record-breaking rain for the last week has caused nothing but trouble for folks in southern Louisiana, and the water is still rising. Lots of people have headed for high ground, but a fair number didn't make it.

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"Police were rescuing people from cars stranded on a miles-long stretch of Interstate 12, which was closed from Baton Rouge to Tangipahoa Parish," notes the article.

One lady who was stuck in the mess told a reporter that they were eating vegetables from a produce truck that shared out its load. She said most everyone is upbeat, but getting fresh water was becoming a problem.

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Now this is a regional event with lots of help coming from the state and from National Guard units. There are a lot of people who remain trapped by the still-rising water, but we've seen this before and eventually things will return to normal.

However, check this out from ZeroHedge:

What will you do when the lights go out? The inevitable failure of the U.S. grid

Sooner or later, if you don't put oil in your car, if you don't change the plugs, if you keep driving on bald tires … your vehicle will stop moving. We all know this is true. A powerful and complex piece of machinery like a car can be brought low by the failure of a three-dollar sensor.

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Well, in the right conditions, the U.S. power grid – complex, antiquated and poorly maintained – can be taken out by a falling tree. Or a solar flare. Or a low-yield nuke. And if the grid goes, so does the USA for a very long time.

Putting aside three months of food for your family is so easy, so cheap and so prudent that you have to be a gold-plated buffoon not to do so.

Don't be that.

And that's one of the reasons we prep.

We've covered a lot of gun stuff is the past couple of months, but defense is only one aspect of the world of prepping. Assuming the center holds for a while longer, I intend to get into other areas of self-sufficiency such as small-production gardening, prepper construction, livestock choices, communication alternatives, personal power production, local and regional intelligence gathering, sanitation ... in other words, a lot of things that can improve your chances of surviving a disaster, either natural or man-made.

But one of the most commonly discussed prepper activities on the web (and one of the most lucrative for the prepper-ad farms) is a process that seems to have been assigned a sort of undercurrent of adventure.

I'm talking about bugging out.

Merriam-Webster defines "bug out" as "1. to retreat during a military action; especially : to flee in panic; 2 : to depart especially in a hurry."

Is prepping the right thing for to do for Christians? Or should we just be trusting in the Lord? Learn about that balance in "Be Thou Prepared" by Carl Gallups – "Equipping the Church for Persecution and Times of Trouble."

The origin of the term is unknown, though most sources assign it to the military from either WWII or the Korean War. But the definitions above are incomplete as far as a civilian would understand them, although all my military brothers and sisters will get it: if you're in a situation where the options are either retreat or annihilation, your bug out is always towards support. In other words, you head towards perceived safety, meaning friendly units who are prepared to take you in.

Bugging out is what you do when you're about to be overrun, when your survivability calculus is approaching zero. It isn't a tactical retreat or withdrawal, it's a "hell bent for leather, posse on your trail" moment – but always with the knowledge that Robber's Roost waits for you at the end of your run.

A lot of prepper purveyors on the net seem to suggest that all you need to "get out of Dodge" is a magical sack of fishing hooks, Mylar sleeping bags and high calorie door-stops and away you'll go, like the Von Trapp family, yodeling your way to a survivalist Switzerland.

Now don't get me wrong, every member of your family should have a bug out bag (BOB). If you've bought a commercially made BOB – good for you. There are a lot of good general ones out there. Even if you never have to leave home, it's a good technical addition to the 72-hour food/water supply you've already put up. If you still haven't got a BOB, don't worry. We'll be covering how to make one that will be specific to your needs when the starting gun fires.

But here's the thing: If you're forced to leave your home and venture out into the big open, you leave more than just your favorite restaurant behind you. You'll also be leaving your friends, acquaintances, and your overall support group. You're leaving your comfort zone, your area of operation (AO) and your detailed gestalt of local terrain and conditions. And you'll be trading all of those advantages for ignorance, uncertainty and deprivation – unless you know where you are going and have made a detailed plan of the way(s) you'll get there.

Quite truthfully, if the totality of your whole plan is to "head west," you're probably better off staying where you are and "bugging in." If the disaster isn't too widespread or too extreme, the various government agencies will get around to you eventually. They may decide to keep you in place, or move you to temporary shelters.

Check out some options in the WND Superstore preparedness department. New products of all kinds being added regularly for all your prepper needs – from informational books, movies to shovels, water purifiers, and food from soup to nuts!

But bear in mind that depending on the severity of the event, you may be waiting some time for the cavalry to arrive and that "temporary" shelter could be home for quite a while. And once you're there, it will be the state that decides when you leave. Your desires or opinions will neither be requested or required.

Pretty obviously, this and the next few columns on evacuation in the event of a SHTF (stuff hits the fan) disaster will be pointed mostly at city dwellers. Please understand that I hold urbanites in the highest esteem. After all, somebody needs to live in the cities, if for no other reason than keeping the sushi restaurants open for my occasional forays into the glitter domes.

But everyone, even that guy living in the converted fire watch tower on Desolation Peak, should have a BOB and a plan.

In the next few weeks, we'll be looking at DIY situation-specific BOBs, city egress planning, and a few strategies for having a destination in mind.

So until next week, start repairing your relationships with those farmer relatives you can't stand, tune up your car and get prepared.