Bugging out to a retreat, away from the troubles, is a popular prepper theme…and to some extent, daydream. How’s that dream working out in the COVID pandemic; and what can we learn from it?
Bugging out: The Vision
The daydream version goes something like this: You’ve got an off-the-grid cabin in the woods somewhere where you can live off the land. Or maybe it’s a little place in a small town, back on the Blue Highways where there’s not enough people to make a zombie horde. When the crisis looms; you bug out to the woods or the town and hunker down while the rest of the world goes somewhere in a handbasket.
Our cabin at The Place. We didn’t bug out to there for COVID-19; it isn’t suited for this particular problem.
When does the bugging out daydream start?
The first hitch in the plan is … when do you go? Leaving home and work is a pretty big deal after all; moreso if you have a family that will also have to pull up stakes. If you’re classified as an ‘essential worker’ as I write this (end of March 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic still on the upswing), you’re still expected to go to work. Maybe leaving it would just lose you a job. Can you afford that at the front end of what looks to be a nasty economic turn?
Salty and I thought of bugging out to The Place. We haven’t, though. Both of us are still working. I’m working from home; but I couldn’t do that without a good internet connection. The Place has none. Is that job worth our lives? Of course not; but that’s *probably* not the trade we’re making. It’s certainly keep a good job in exchange for a slight chance of a serious negative health outcome if we stay. And here we stay.
This pandemic is just the example on hand; but I can see lots of scenarios where deciding when to pull the trigger and go is one of the hardest problems to solve.
Does the bug-out location have what you need?
It’s not just about a good roof and food. Those things are relatively easy. It may be about health care. A bug-out spot remote enough to be valuable for getting away from the city hordes is going to have few hospital beds in reach, few specialists, and be lowest on the priority list for scarce supplies. Is that where you want to go when you might be in an incubation period?
Stocking a bug-out location is also a challenge. Salty and I have a generous food supply, but not much of it is at The Place. It’s a logistical problem; with no electricity and no funds as of yet for digging good in-ground storage, we have no temperature-controlled storage. That’s limited how much we could put out there. For many folks, having the funds to keep a good bug-out location at all is beyond reach.
Will you be welcome in your own bug-out location?
This one’s no surprise to Salty and me, as we *live* in one of these small, rural towns. In fact, we posted this article a year ago, pointing out that people wouldn’t be welcome in small towns in an emergency unless they were already known and accepted there beforehand.
Well, it’s happening now. (1) As New York City hospitals overflow, all those ‘charming’ little resort towns along the east coast are telling the vacation home owners to Just Stay Away. Some of them are even passing legislations to prevent vacation owners from moving in to the homes they own during the crisis.
In the U.S., State Troopers in several states and city police in many places are blocking entry to potential bug-out spots.
Why? They know their resources are limited. They know they are not at the top of the priority list for supplies. And they don’t want to have to compete with the ‘city people’ for those supplies. Or to have those ‘city people’ carry in infection. It’s the refrain of people who live in vacation spots everywhere: “You outsiders go away! Just send us the tourist dollars, m’kay, because we’re kinda dependent on those…”
Bugging Out: The Real-Life version
Seems to me that bugging out is mostly a case of “Go big or go home.”
Going Big is having a good spot prepared, with the resources you’re likely to really need. Have enough real connections with the community that you’re not one of Those Outsiders when the time comes.
Going Home is bugging in where you Do live. It may not be away from the hordes, but at least you have your community connections and know your own territory. You can supply yourself more fully without breaking the bank by having to double-buy. And it’s a lot more feasible to have ongoing food production. Trust me, trying to keep even an orchard in good shape in a place where you don’t regularly live is a lot of labor and hassle. A productive garden probably wouldn’t happen. And no, hunting is Not enough. You can hunt/fish even a good spot dry way too fast, especially if your neighbors are “helping”.
So…yes it would be great to bug-out during a pandemic. However with ‘shelter in place’ directives is that wise. if I’m coughing etc, or think i have been exposed, why would i leave my home to potentially spread the disease in another location. if i got sick enough i’d have to seek medical assistance in my new locale putting others at risk. In any event we are seeing an increasing animosity by law enforcement and neighbors towards folks travelling to a second home. Look at Maine where residents approached with guns and cut down a tree across such folks driveway. Viruses spread as people spread.
Yes, the bugging out thing is great for natural (weather) disasters barreling down on one’s home; and if things Really fell apart I wouldn’t want to be in a city — but for many other situations it doesn’t work so well. We’d be fine at The Place because our primary home is close enough we’re still considered to Belong…but the point of the post was that the ‘not belonging’ thing is an often overlooked problem.