It's a good idea to have one, the other, or both: a "bug out kit" and a "Get home kit" for the vehicle.

One thing I don't see touched on a great deal is the importance of planning for emergencies other than the EOFTWAWKI type. When I traveled a great deal by car/truck, I always made sure to keep an Auto Survival Kit in the vehicle: an assortment of tools, parts, hoses, belts and other gear that would let me do fast emergency repairs for the most common type of breakdowns - at least long eough for me to get the car off the road and to the next service station.
Plus a few things like water, a blanket, flashlights, and a first aid kit.

That saved my tail quite a few times when I had a hose or belt or other minor breakage on some dark highway 100 miles from nowhere. At the very least, it saved me a long, long walk to a service station, or from having to spend the night in the car hoping someone would happen by.

Couple of quick comments, having lived within 5 miles of a nuclear plant before. I kept my bug-out bag in the hall closet and a smaller one in my car, and just kept the habit even after I moved. Keep sneakers that fit in your car!

--keep prescription meds on your person, or in your purse, not your car. High heat or freezing cold can neutralize some medications. Food deteriorates faster, too.

--have a plan for your pets and livestock. Over 3 million animals drowned in NC during Hurricane Floyd. And if you don't care about kitties and bunnies, think about the contaminated water from all the dead bodies. Serious health hazard.

--You are your own best "bug out" kit. Stay as fit as you can. At 7:00 am, 9/11, no one thought they'd be walking/running out of Manhattan.

Non-surgeons may consider a light weight backpacker's first aid kit. Inside doubled ziplocks (irrigation bag), duct tape, 4×4 gauze pads, a pill bottle with heavy duty pain meds, aspirin, Rolaids, and Sudafed, with a rubber tourniquet wrapped around the outside. If you can't fix it with these items, (plus the Swiss army knife on your keyring) odds are you don't have the knowlege or skill to fix it anyway.

That goes in the 3 day pack, good for getting home or getting away from home. Food, stove, fuel, light, Clorox (2 drops to the quart, 8 to the gallon)and/or a water filter, sleeping bag, pad, tent and three layers of clothes, base, insulation, and wind/waterproof shell. Filter masks, rubber gloves and goggles add to the shell to cover you essentially head to toe.

Weapons should be for defense and used at short range to buy time, (three round bursts, get their heads down while you escape) and it's hard to beat a 12 gauge with alternating slugs and double ought.

It amazes me how few people realize how dependant they are on electricity. No juice = no water, no gasoline. You have about three hours before the need for water becomes a problem, and in as few as 24 hours, your survival starts to become questionable.

I live well out in the middle of nowhere, where the wind frequently piles two inches of snow up into two and three foot drifts, so it's just common sense for me to take certain precautions, but if the grid goes down, the city type people are going to find themselves just as "isolated" as I am, with the added ugliness not being prepared and even worse, of having lots of other upprepared and therefore very scared people surrounding them.

A simple and cheap thing that should be in every kit is a good dust mask. In the case of a dirty bombing, or another 9/11 esque attack, inhaled dust is going to be one of the greatest dangers.

Also, keep a lot of water on hand. We routinely have 3-5 people at our home, so we keep enough water stored in our basement to supply us all for one week, two if we ration.

Make sure you make the dust mask a HEPA mask, like the surgeons were. Might help keep biologicals out of your lungs...

BTW here is a link for the BOB I prepared using tips from www.thefiringline.com

http://home.earthlink.net/~keithnshelly/TFLGoBag.htm

BTW here is a link for the BOB I prepared using tips from www.thefiringline.com

http://home.earthlink.net/~keithnshelly/TFLGoBag.htm

Includes lists for a 3 day bag, 7 day, car box, and bunker down kits

And for pics of the assembled bag...

http://home.earthlink.net/~keithnshelly/TFL_BOB.htm

A roll of those black leaf bags doesn't take up too much room and those things can come in handy in a lot of ways.

Two resources that are great for this topic.

www.survivalring.org

Newsgroup:
misc.survivalism

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