Evacuation Homework/ Emergency BOL that is a mess

[longbow]

Three months into SHTF, you have just lost your home and could not stay. You had just a few hours to pack and haul out. After traveling for a few hours this is the best place you can find. You have your wife and three young kids, your BOB, some stuff you jammed in the suv and basic hand tools

How you going to make this home?

The house, burned out and with no roof

The garage with a partial roof, no doors and filled with trash!

Interior of the trash filled garage

Side view of the garage

This is what you have to live with as home for the next few weeks! What are you wishing you had packed into your SUV or BOB?

There is a year round stream about 20 feet to the left of the last picture, so water is not a problem. The area is rural, and no one else was claiming the site.

Fire away with your answers and ideas............

(FYI - this home was our local volunteer fire chief's place before it burned and he walked away from it)

 

[vesan87]

Look like it also went through an earthquake. I don't think I would feel safe staying in either of those structures. If the house has a basement then I might try to collapse the remaining brick wall outward and repair the inevitable holes in the basements ceiling. If no basement is available then cleaning out the garage and putting up a makeshift door might work. Also try to reinforce the cracked walls. Possibly park the SUV in the garage too and let the young ones sleep in a makeshift bed inside the vehicle. Hunting and foraging looks like the best way to get food. Provided you've already exhausted your little bit you took with you. I really hope that stream has fish and If it does then I'll be really sore about not bringing a fishing pole.

I also bet you could salvage some building materials from the house to better insulate the garage or make it more secure.

 

[2ADMNLOVER]

How you going to make this home?

I wouldn't , this place is so full of fail it's ridiculess . I'd be worrying about structural damage from the fire , not to mention people .

Unless you've packed one hell of a tool set AND have ample supply of building materials AND some construction experience , your just setting yourself and family up for major failure .

Then there's the tactics side of the problem , E & E . Your "bugging out" right ? That means you probably should stay away from folks you don't know or have some "experience" with .

Until you get to your BOL or "safe zone" , that means staying away from man made structures , why ? Because they attract other people , you found the place right ?


This is what you have to live with as home for the next few weeks! What are you wishing you had packed into your SUV or BOB?

More fuel , see above .

.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

I believe after I checked the structural integrity of the roof of the garage, I'd use one of my 12 x 16' tarps to create a temporary shelter inside of the cleared-out interior. I'd use the accumulated debris, plus anything salvageable from the house to close off the garage door entrance, and use the side door for entry/exit. If I were feeling especially paranoid, I might leave another entrance in the garage door debris field. After setting up the initial shelter arrangements, I'd see about covering the roof unobtrusively, and generally reinforcing the structure.

 

[jayhawk]

-(in the near term) Camp outdoors during the day, use the SUV for shelter.
-Build a latrine.
-Salvage bricks from the house to enclose the garage.
-Try to use any found materials to repair any structural problems with the garage.
-(depending on the weather) Try to create a workable stove/chimney in the garage.

I would hope that I had an ax or hatchet, a tarp or two and some rope, cooking utensils and something to store water in.

...and maybe a solar battery charger for the ipod.

 

[Icarry2]

Dude where do you come up with this stuff? I love the journal thread and this is too cool..

I would rest and keep moving.. My BOL wouldn't be like this..

 

[longbow]

Assume the garage is stable.....

The house is useless for shelter but is a supply of building materials

 

[longbow]

The point is to get you thinking......

I'm not big on bugging out, because this is what you might get stuck with!

Keep the ideas coming and I've already thought of a few things I wish I had if I was stuck at this place.

 

[FWShooter]

This place would just be a stop over place for some forraging, hunting, refilling water containers, and seeing if there was anything worth a damn to borrow.

Past that I would setup tent in the woods for a couple of days and refresh supplies before heading back out again to find a suitable place.

No way in hell I am trusting myself or my bastard kids that I despise in that house or garage (I need the the bastards alive since they are slower bait for the zombies).

Plus I am sure down the road is a better house and all I have to pray is I am a better shot and they lack night vision so why waste my energy on trying to make a POS livable.

Oh yes bringing the camping gear in a SHTF situation with my truck is one of my #1 priorities since I can survive for a really long time on the limited gear.

 

[WETSU]

That looks like home to me. I can make a Taj Mahal out of natural materials in the woods, so finding a HUGE pile of buildng materials looks like heaven to me.

Day one, I would set up camp and salvage bigger pieces of the wreckage as well as anything usful and start catagorizing. I would start a stack of building materials and organize my work. Draw range card, post security. Sleep in the SUV. SOP.

Day two. Build a latrine using that 5 gallon bucket and some tin and bricks. Start a fire and start collecting/storing water. Gather firewood. Clear out rat/vermin nesting areas. Pick up broken glass and nails. Continue to collect usefull items: tools, cutlery, batteries, containers, canned goods, cordage/wire, fasteners, cooking stuff, etc. Set up snares and a few trotlines in the stream. Patrol the AO further out. Sleep in the SUV, set out security per SOP.

Day Three: Start building a house. Using bricks, wood, posts, wire, corrugated tin, insulation, tarps, shingles. I would build a shack for sleeping and gear storage.

Day 4 through 21. Improve everything about the site. Forage for food, patrol the AO, cut back fields of fire. Stack firewood. Make some furniture. Wash clothing. Mend items. Start thinking about moving on and taking the best of the scrounged stuff.

Thats it, sticking with Longbow's original parameters.

There is nothing I else would wanted to pack in my BOB.

Great thread dude.

 

[FWShooter]

Assuming I have to stay within the parameters the house would be dead to me except for raiding for stuff like duct work, hoping they have a wood stove, hand crank tools or electric since I have invertor in the truck, etc. If they do have wood burning stove and ductwork at least I can vent the wood stove out of the window in the garage so I can have heat and a way to cook without burning backpack fuel and keep it contained in my new house.

The garage is where I would set up "base camp". Use tarps in the truck (yes I carry them everywhere) or the metal shingling laying around to try and patch up the roof for some rain protection. Use the door on the right of the garage to patch up the doorway. Try and stack some of the fallen bricks from the house to block up the main garage door to create more shelter and once again tarps save the day (I have like 4 in the truck right now).

All the rest of the junk in the garage what I cannot find a use for I would just throw back into the house.

As long as I can get heat, replenishable way to cook, water, and a roof over my head there is not much that cannot be overcame. With the amount of wood around getting heat and cooking will not be hard and the stream is good.

Down the road and after established would maybe stack some bricks from the house to divide up the garage into rooms.

As far as stuff I should have packed away in the truck that is not hmm...do not know because a couple hours to pack is a really long time and gives you a lot of time to think about what you want and do not want especially if you can maintain calmness but after 3 months of SHTF I would probably be cool as a cuke.

For me I would grab my standard camping gear (portable kitchen/cookware/tent/small table/cooler) or at least the backpack setup (still has cooking just smaller and lighter) and the ability to make a makeshift tent, weaponery/tackle box, and portable toolbox (hammer, wrenches, nails, bolts, hand saw, hand drill, etc) and I am sure I could find nails everywhere in the house. The one thing I know I will definitely forget is my good axe since I always forget that.

Food would be trapping, forraging, hunting, leftover dried goods that could be packed, etc.

 

[FWShooter]

Oh and if Oregon Trail has taught me anything my kids are going to die dysentery out of the gate of the trip.