Suburban Survival

No, I'm not talking about the expected longevity, crash resistance, or safety rating of a certain large SUV.   Suburban survival focuses on how to take care of yourself and your family in a suburban environment during a large scale natural or man-made disaster.  That said, the referenced large SUV might play an important part in suburban survival, especially if it has 4 wheel drive and can get you OUT if you have to bug out!

Your RV and/or your camping skills and equipment can be of great value in a disaster situation.   I have often touted the benefits of an RV as a "Disaster Recovery Vehicle" and have actually used my motorhome as such on more than one occasion.   Even having basic camping equipment and skills may be very helpful if your home is unsafe or all the utilities are knocked out. Keeping your RV and camping equipment in good condition and readily accessible in an emergency may be critical to your survival when things go bad.  Having shelter to get in out of bad weather and the ability to prepare meals on a camp stove or campfire could literally be life-saving.  Most suburban homes have a back yard big enough to set up a tent and other campsite amenities and may already have a fire pit or outdoor fireplace  If you don't have any outdoor fire facilities, you an always use your trusty BBQ or perhaps build a primitive campfire.  Many towns and cities ordinarily have stringent regulations about building back yard fires but cooking fires are almost always permitted and any regulations are likely to be suspended, eased, or ignored during an emergency.   If you live in an apartment or condo with limited yard space you might have to seek an alternate location to set up your emergency camp.   Check out your neighborhood ahead of time and identify parks or vacant lots or make arrangements with neighbors with large yards to join them.  If you are stuck in an apartment or condo with a balcony or deck you can probably fire up your BBQ outside on the balcony to prepare emergency meals.  DO NOT use it inside!  The toxic fumes and oxygen consumption can be deadly and it can create a significant fire hazard.

Safety first!   Carefully scope out your situation and take action to ensure your safety and that of your family before doing anything else.   Do not risk re-entering a collapsed building just to grab a few supplies or even to aid trapped victims!   Rescue in a badly damaged building should only be done by trained professionals with the right equipment.  Amateurs with good intentions are likely to become additional victims.  You won't be able to help someone else if you get trapped or injured --  you will only contribute to the problem!  In most disasters, more would-be rescuers are killed by ill-advised attempts to help people than are killed by the initial disaster.  Improper rescue attempts may also jeopardize the safety of trapped victims as well as injuring the would-be rescuers. C.E.R.T. training teaches the first thing you do in any emergency situation is a "size up".  In its simplest definition, "size up" means to "observe someone or something to get information".  Study the situation.  Identify potential hazards. Determine the number and location of victims and, if possible, the extent of their injuries.   Check for things that might cause additional damage or put rescuers at risk.  Look for safe passages to retrieve and transport victims.  If you can't get in and out safely, stay out!  Attempting a dangerous rescue is likely to result in you adding to the problem by becoming an additional victim and that isn't going to help anyone!  C.E.R.T guidelines allow even trained C.E.R.T. volunteers to enter only lightly damaged buildings.  They are prohibited from entering more heavily damaged structures except under the direction of professional rescuers.  How do you know if a building  is heavily damaged?  Sometimes it is obvious.  If the walls are splayed out, the roof caved in, or it is off its foundation,  it is clearly heavily damaged and unsafe to enter without proper safety precautions to stabilize the structure.  Following an earthquake you are likely to see lots of cracks in plaster and stucco.  That is actually normal and, unless there are "X" shaped cracks  below the windows, the structure is probably secure enough for rescue attempts even if there is other cracking -- unless there are additional signs of significant damage as described above.  If you see "X" cracks under the windows, cross it off your list to enter.

Make use of what you have.  In a disaster situation, normal utilities and public services are interrupted.  You may be without electric power, natural gas, water, or sewer service.  The interruption may last for hours, days, or even weeks!   If you find yourself in an emergency situation, take stock of what resources you have on hand -- food, water, clothing, medical supplies, fuel, tools, building materials, and shelter.  Begin immediately collecting or retrieving useful items and organizing them where you can protect them and have access to them when you need them.   You might find it useful to keep some things YOU don't expect to use.  Someone in your neighborhood might need them and you can either donate them to be a good neighbor or use them to barter for things you don't have.

Water supplies are often interrupted during a disaster situation.  City water systems may be damaged and power to run pumps on rural wells may be out.  If you have a safe place to store water for emergencies it is a good idea to so so.  You can usually find room under beds for a few gallon jugs. The water in your toilet tank might be safe (if you don't have one of those blue drop in cleaners in the tank) and you can usually get 40-50 gallons of potable water by draining your hot water heater.  Once you have used the clean water from your toilet tank you can dump dirty water in it to continue to flush the toilets if the sewer system is still in tact.  This will only work with gravity toilets, not the power flush toilets sometimes used in basements.  You can use water from just about any source:  creeks, rivers, lakes, ponds, ditches, gutters, even puddles.  Avoid wasting potable water for flushing toilets!

An RV is a particularly good option for suburban survival -- if you have place close to home to park it.   It is especially convenient and useful if you can park it on your property.  You have a ready-made shelter, complete with beds, heating, cooking, sanitation, and often air conditioning. You have a comfortable bed, cooking facilities, and usually hot water, toilet, and shower.  If you have an on board or portable generator you may be able to supply power to your residential refrigerator and freezer to prevent the loss of food you have on hand.  Keep in mind that in many large-scale disasters, stores will be sold out in a few hours and and have difficulty restocking. You may have to survive 2 weeks or more on what you have on hand.  Your RV is a good place to store non-perishable provisions and, if you're not in freezing weather, fresh water.   Keeping a well-stocked first aid kit in your RV and maintaining your first aid certification helps prepare you for camping and disaster emergencies.  You might augment your camping clothes with a few key survival outfits -- just in case.  Keep in mind you might need clothing and footwear that is sturdier and more durable in a survival situation than for normal camping.

Tent camping skills can be used just about anywhere (unless you live in a high-rise).  Even then you might find respite in a local park -- if thousands of neighbors haven't already beaten you to it.  If utilities are out you might even set up your dome tent indoors so you can take shelter in a protected environment that will help you preserve body heat easier than in a large room.  Having a tent indoors protects it from wind and precipitation, making it even easier to keep it warm inside.  Urbanites have both some advantages and some disadvantages when it comes to disaster survival.   They will usually be the first to get professional search and rescue assistance and may be quickly evacuated to well stocked and well supported civic shelters.  They will also probably be the first to have utilities restored.  Water, gas, and power companies can do the most good for the most people by concentrating on areas with the highest population density.  In urban settings, you may still be able to get to functioning hospitals for medical emergencies.   Urban settings will not usually be good places to set up tents and campfires.  Nor will you have access to natural food and water sources you might have in a suburban or rural environment.  While there may be edible wild plants and possibly game animals in a rural setting, it is unlikely you are going to find anything like that in an urban or suburban environment.  While there might be resources in parks, there will also most likely be fierce competition for them.  That means you'll be dependent on what you have stored.  That includes water as well as food.  You may be able to drain water from your hot water heater or dip it from the tank on your toilet.  The water in the toilet tank should be pure as long as you haven't added cleaning tablets to the tank.  It should go without saying: do NOT use water from the toilet bowl.  Your pets might think it is OK, but it is not an approved source for human consumption.   The very thought of drinking out of toilet is a pretty effective emetic for most people. (An emetic is a substance that induces vomiting).  BTW, once you have used up the fresh water from your toilet tank it is OK to replenish it with non-potable water (from streams, ditches, ponds or even  puddles) so you can continue to flush your toilet (if the sewer system is still in tact).

Practice makes perfect is an age-old proverb that definitely applies to survival.   Fortunately, most of us don't experience disasters on a regular basis so unless we make a deliberate effort to practice our survival skills, they may fail us when a disaster strikes.  Unfortunately, that means our Practicing some survival techniques on every camp out is one way to maintain and develop your skills.   Start your campfire without matches.  In an RV ALWAYS conserve your on board resources (water, power, fuel, etc).  Get in the habit of conserving resources so it comes naturally when you need it.  Some survival skills may not be practical to exercise regularly, such as building an emergency shelter and setting traps.   There aren't many places you can cut trees and branches to practice building a shelter. For these types of skills, renew your knowledge by frequently reading relevant material, watching videos, and creating thought exercises in your mind.  Think about situations you might find your self in and how you would apply your survival knowledge to take care of yourself and your family.   Even if you've never built a survival lean-to or an igloo, practice building them in your mind.   What resources do you need?  Where will you get them?   How do you put them together to create an effective shelter?  How will you decide which direction the open side of a lean-to will face?  Where will you look for food?  Where will you look for water?  Where can you get tinder to get your fire going?   My wife and I played "what if" survival games on a recent road trip, trying to spot potential survival locations and resources along the way.

Escaping your urban or suburban environment may be your best bet in a long term disaster. Preppers call it "bugging out".  Before grabbing your bags and hitting the road, make sure you have a plan and someplace to go.  Just joining the throngs of panicked people fighting to get out of town won't do you much good.  If you know where you're going, you'll need a way to get there.  If the original event was an earthquake, hurricane, tornado or blizzard, chances are many roads will be impassible.   I once counted more than 130 bridges on the commute between my home and work in southern California and every one would be a potential obstacle following an earthquake.  Getting home after a major quake would have been a major problem.  A friend of mine in the Los Angeles area took escape really seriously. He bought a 4x4 Jeep which pretty much just sat in his garage waiting for "The Big One" to hit.  He also kept a 4x4 ATV and learned to fly and sail.  He bought memberships in an airplane and a sail boat.   That was decades ago and, as far as I know, he has yet to make use of any of his escape mechanisms.   I'm not suggesting that you need to go that far, but you should make sure you have fuel for whatever vehicle(s) you might plan to use to get from your home to your survival destination.   My RV and dirt bikes figure prominently in my survival plans.  Since I already live an a rural area I don't expect to have to go far for survival but my RV will be my "Disaster Recovery Vehicle" and my dirt bikes may get pressed into service as "runner" vehicles to exchange status and other information with neighbors and local emergency services organizations.  As a last resort we could drive a long way on damaged roads or off-road to escape pending doom.  Even horses or bicycles might be part of your escape plan.  If all else fails, you may have to walk.  Having some hiking experience and equipment would be useful in that situation.

Have you ever watched the TV show "Survivorman"?  If you have, you will know that, regardless of the physical situation (ocean, desert, jungle, frozen tundra), he ALWAYS stresses the most important aspect of survival: the will to live.  No matter what the situation, your attitude and commitment and mental state will be the greatest factor that determines whether or not you will survive.   People with little survival training have survived against great odds by sheer determination and thoughtful planning.  Some people with extensive survival knowledge have died because they panicked, forgot  or didn't apply their training, or just plain gave up!

You may not have many opportunities to practice suburban survival (at least we hope not!) but you can and should mentally review what you will do in an emergency.  It is the next best thing to actual hands on practice and will help you remember what to do if you ever need it.

And last but not certainly least, seek out C.E.R.T. training.   I've been through the course over a half dozen times to maintain my certification and skills.  C.E.R.T. gives you what you need to know to deal with most urban and suburban disaster situations, covering topics like Disaster Psychology, Light Search and Rescue, Medical Triage, and even some Hazmat instruction. You'll learn how and when to shut of your natural gas, water, and electricity.  You'll be given guidelines for assessing how badly damaged a building is to help you determine whether it is safe to conduct rescue operations therein  You'll be taught how to "size up" a situation quickly and organize and prioritize available resources to do the most good for the most people.  You'll be instructed in how to conduct a "60 second assessment" to help you evaluate a victim's status and assess the extent of their injuries and to triage victims so you can do the most good for the most people.

Survive!