Bugging Out, for Kids

In the "prepper" community ("survivalist" is so 1980s), "bugging out" means leaving home in a hurry due to natural catastrophe or civil disorder.

But how do you explain it to the kids and help them get in the spirit of things? Make it a fun, fun game.

If you have to bug out, your kids will too. As an added bonus, they also can help carry stuff. Not as much as mom and dad, but they should be able to provide some help. And, if you’re like me, you kind of like having them around.

The first thing you do is talk to them about why. Don’t bombard them with doom and gloom scenarios—make it fun. In discussing why with my children, we talked about everything from weather, asteroids, zombies, pirates and more stuff than I can remember. They had fun with it, imagining the different reasons we’d have to get out of The City (My The City). Their little imaginations run wild, making-believe all manner of silliness, and they’re funny and intuitive.

For completeness' sake, my thoughts on the matter after our first forest fire-caused evacuation.

Seriously, you should know where you would go if you had to leave. And if you have to "shelter in place" — which is probably more likely — you ought to be able to be self-sufficient for at least a week, unless you really enjoy standing in line for a couple of bottles of drinking water.

Even if government aid agencies are functioning as they should, do not assume that they will be able to help you right away.

For a different approach, here is the first of a series of posts in which the writer assesses his and his family's conduct during Hurricane Katrina, what they did wrong and right. 

Problems arise for various reasons.  One of them is sheer laziness.  You don't really *want* to pack all your crap in the car and take a long drive.  Especially not with little kids.  It's aggravating, it's expensive, and you'd rather download porn off the internet.  There are plenty of reasons — excuses, actually — not to make the hard decision.  There's also a little voice inside your head that says, "Well, these weather people have no idea what they're talking about anyway, so maybe they're wrong.  Let's just wait a little longer and see what happens..."  Of course, if [television meteorologist] Nash Roberts had said we should go, then everybody would have went [sic] — but like I said, he wasn't available.  Why?  Because he was evacuating.  If we'd have known that at the time, every man, woman, and child would have fled instantly.  When the Weather High Priest gets out of Dodge, you should too.