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Bug out bags in actual use

A cell phone and charger in nearly every one, and little else. My big out bags weigh around 50 lbs. And I never thought to put a cell phone charger in them. It does make me want to rethink what is actually worth taking in a bug out bag.
 
a portable cell phone charger is best for an on foot bug out. i have one in just in case. uses lithium AA batteries. size is like an old flip phone.

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hillman said:
A cell phone and charger in nearly every one, and little else. My big out bags weigh around 50 lbs. And I never thought to put a cell phone charger in them. It does make me want to rethink what is actually worth taking in a bug out bag.
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you rethink as you need to, bug out and then start tossing less useful items.
 
hillman said:
A cell phone and charger in nearly every one, and little else. My big out bags weigh around 50 lbs. And I never thought to put a cell phone charger in them. It does make me want to rethink what is actually worth taking in a bug out bag.
Click to expand...

It makes me wonder what people are actually planning to "bug out" for.
 
I think of my BOB as a displacement back or a GHB. I have food, water, knife, fire, cash and medical supplies in mine. I have a couple of things to make a basic shelter and spare clothing.

Reading this article was interesting, but we can't draw a straight comparison between these refugees and what Americans can realistically expect to ever experience. These are folks who have been suffering in horrible conditions for years and finally had to flee. They grabbed what they could and GTFO.

We have the luxury of planning and prepping under stable conditions. If TSHTF, we won't be grabbing a random bunch of crap to leave with. No matter what we think of the current conditions in our country, things could be much, much worse.
 
I found it interesting that medicine and medication was definitely prized in the first few BOBs (mother, child and teen) and the Pharmacist had just money and electronics! And the dope wrapped the money to protect it from water but one of his cell phones was useless because of water. SMH
 
The article is relevant if you are going from chaos > order. You only need to survive to 'get there'. Water, food medicine, all smart.

Your expectation would be that some form of civilization remains, so documents, money would be of value.

If SHTF, it's a very different situation.
 
JayMcB said:
Your expectation would be that some form of civilization remains, so documents, money would be of value.

If SHTF, it's a very different situation.
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I would certainly consider Katrina, Sandy, Syria, Ukraine to be SHTF situations. (yeah, i know, very different situations and causes, but anyone stuck in the middle of any of them was in a SHTF and the fan was not on low) Just not TEOTWAWKI

My brother was quite comfortable in Hoboken after Sandy because he had all his camping gear in his apartment. He was quite comfortable until he walked out to NYC to stay with friends. Wading through hip deep water he pretty much brought what would normally be in his pockets, wallet cell phone etc, and a couple changes of clothes and that was it.
 
bfm said:
I would certainly consider Katrina, Sandy, Syria, Ukraine to be SHTF situations. (yeah, i know, very different situations and causes, but anyone stuck in the middle of any of them was in a SHTF and the fan was not on low) Just not TEOTWAWKI

My brother was quite comfortable in Hoboken after Sandy because he had all his camping gear in his apartment. He was quite comfortable until he walked out to NYC to stay with friends. Wading through hip deep water he pretty much brought what would normally be in his pockets, wallet cell phone etc, and a couple changes of clothes and that was it.
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This was a local disruption. Hurricanes and their aftermath suck, but 50 miles away from shore life was largely unaffected - other than nationwide nausea when Krispy Kreme Kristy hugged the king.

For me, SHTF= FEMA is NOT coming.
 
goodlife30 said:
Cell phone towers will be overwhelmed with people texting and updating Facebook during a shtf
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And ( I work on cell towers), the big carriers like Verizon and AT&T have a back up battery system and generator's, but the smaller carries normally don't ( batt back up yes but normally no gen set ).
Even with back ups the batt life is only good for maybe 36~48 hours and enough fuel to run for about the same, under normal usage.
They are no way ment for long term usage, ( or heavy use ) just small outages, few hours or a day or two max till a Tec can get up there to swap batts in or meet a refuelling company.

Don't bank on much cell tower action and remember towers can talk to one another threw microwave single, but 80% of what you make for a call go's threw a fiber line threw a land line. A few poles drop down and cell service gets put at a max.

Jason.
 
[laugh] I can't wait for something of decent proportion like some giant ice storm that knocks out power for hundreds of miles to hit around here, people are going to lose their minds. Take away their ability to facebook or twitter for a few weeks and it'll be as if their little world has come to an end.

The last time we had a decent outage around here it was for ten days and some folks I worked with were complaining they had to drive two towns over to use McDonalds wifi to complain online that they had to drive two towns over to use McDonalds wifi, I couldn't stop laughing. It crossed over to hysterical for me when they told me they didn't know what to do without their laptops/tablets/cell phones because all their batteries were dead, it never occurred to any of them to charge them in the car. I told them I had a great ol' time just hanging out watching movies and reading books on my Kindle for the duration. One tried to call me out on the movies saying unless I had a generator, which he knew I didn't have, there was no way I could watch movies on either of my laptops the entire time(he seemed a bit pissy after I laughed at him for not charging his devices in the car). He had never heard of a 12v power inverter and just gave me that confused dog look when I asked him if he had one.

Some folks really are helpless.
 
last time i read a thread here on bob's, the biggest concern you guys had was was getting stranded overnight during a storm in your car. some wanted to store 5 gallons of water, a case or two of survival meals, pillows, sleeping bags, shotguns, handguns and several boxes of ammo. hand crank radios, topo maps, fishing line and hooks, 100 feet of para cord, etc, etc, etc, etc. all for less than 24 hours stranded in the wilds of lexington on 128 during the next big snow. man, we 'mericans have it too good.
 
Lots of hippie types on my street, with one or two PETA crazies. Shit, I think they'd be able to live off the land way better than myself. They don't screw with "bug out bags". They educate themselves.
 
greencobra said:
last time i read a thread here on bob's, the biggest concern you guys had was was getting stranded overnight during a storm in your car. some wanted to store 5 gallons of water, a case or two of survival meals, pillows, sleeping bags, shotguns, handguns and several boxes of ammo. hand crank radios, topo maps, fishing line and hooks, 100 feet of para cord, etc, etc, etc, etc. all for less than 24 hours stranded in the wilds of lexington on 128 during the next big snow. man, we 'mericans have it too good.
Click to expand...
Or we look at the crap going on in other parts of the world and think about how we could deal with it if it happened here. I don't keep all the stuff you listed in my car, but I do keep enough stuff in it (besides my GHB) to let me ride out a day or two in the car without freezing to death or getting really hungry. Not such a terrible idea in NE.
 
dlarge said:
Lots of hippie types on my street, with one or two PETA crazies. Shit, I think they'd be able to live off the land way better than myself. They don't screw with "bug out bags". They educate themselves.
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The hippy types and especially the PETA crazies would be the first to die if anything happened. They live only because they have the luxury of being born in a first world nation like the US. They would never survive anywhere else.
 
knfmn said:
The hippy types and especially the PETA crazies would be the first to die if anything happened. They live only because they have the luxury of being born in a first world nation like the US. They would never survive anywhere else.
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Maybe the ones you know on the North Shore. Not the ones on my street. I wasn't being sarcastic, they know the land. Shrug.
 
greencobra said:
last time i read a thread here on bob's, the biggest concern you guys had was was getting stranded overnight during a storm in your car. some wanted to store 5 gallons of water, a case or two of survival meals, pillows, sleeping bags, shotguns, handguns and several boxes of ammo. hand crank radios, topo maps, fishing line and hooks, 100 feet of para cord, etc, etc, etc, etc. all for less than 24 hours stranded in the wilds of lexington on 128 during the next big snow. man, we 'mericans have it too good.
Click to expand...

It really does crack me up when I read about those folks who carry 25+lbs of shit in their car as if they're getting ready to invade somewhere. [laugh]

knfmn said:
The hippy types and especially the PETA crazies would be the first to die if anything happened. They live only because they have the luxury of being born in a first world nation like the US. They would never survive anywhere else.
Click to expand...

dlarge said:
Maybe the ones you know on the North Shore. Not the ones on my street. I wasn't being sarcastic, they know the land. Shrug.
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knfmn, you may be confusing dlarges country/backwoods hippies with city/metro area hippies. The latter will most certainly die off quickly while some of the country/backwoods hippies I've known would outlast cockroaches after a nuke strike. Although if you were to refer to them as hippies they probably punch you in the face really hard as they'd most likely call themselves woodsmen even though they share a lot of the same beliefs. The only real difference I've been able to tell is one eats meat while the other eats meats food. [laugh]
 
You want some practical advice on living light in an urban or semi-urban area, what you really need and what you don't, you can get some experienced opinions for the cost of buying a homeless guy lunch.
 
MConnelly2 said:
You want some practical advice on living light in an urban or semi-urban area, what you really need and what you don't, you can get some experienced opinions for the cost of buying a homeless guy lunch.
Click to expand...

Funny thing though. I have probably bought lunch for about a dozen homeless guys who were panhandling. Once they realized they would get a sandwich and nothing else most would be quite willing to talk. Maybe one of them was truly homeless and a couple were living in vehicles. the rest all had homes, families and day jobs. There are real homeless people, but they can be harder to find than you think.
 

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