Immediate Action Gear

Gather up your belongings to leave the land,
    you who live under siege.

Jeremiah 10:17

Like Fred Sanford, everyone is always talking about “THE BIG ONE”. Ask people what they are preparing for and you’ll get interesting answers. Pandemic, Russian or Chinese invasion, the Super-Quake, a polar shift, EMP strike, or an alien invasion. The truth is, everyday extreme events have the same effect on your life, even if they are hyper local. For example, it doesn’t matter one bit if an EMP strike took down the power grid nation wide, or if a local storm brought it down in your county – the effect is the same….you can’t get gas out of the underground tanks. It doesn’t matter if the flooding is due to a world-ending climate disaster or a local tropical storm, you can’t use the roads or cars.

Why do I bring this up? We are facing a tropical storm, tornadoes and floods have impacted our nation, and unrest is rising. It is time to discuss the immediate action gear you should have available on a daily basis right now. This is your “Get Home Bag” or “EDC bag”, whatever you call it. In the last few events, no one seemed prepared, despite continuous warnings. Americans (and Western Society in general) refuse to believe anything can happen to them and too self-absorbed to listen to warnings.

Let’s start there. Here, at the Camp Ponderosa front office, I keep a Marine Radio on all the time. Why, when I live nowhere the Great Lakes or the coasts? Because it has a built in weather alert which alerts me to severe weather inbound to my local area. Weather radio is free and the most basic of early warning devices. I’m always amazed when people tell me they don’t monitor weather radio. There is a station covering every area of most nations. At the very least, the US, Canada, and the UK have stations.

Assess the current state of your Get Home Bag. We all have some version, but we have a terrible habit of taking out pieces and using them, and not replacing them. For me, it’s the boo-boo kit. I’m always taking out knuckle or finger-tip band aids and not replacing them. Go through your first aid kits and fire-starter kits to make sure they are complete. Include lighters…I know that a lot of you fancy yourselves as some kind of bushcraft experts, but when your life is on the line, use the most effective tool. I assure you that is Davy Crocket or Daniel Boone had access to the Bic Lighter, they’d have used it.

Refresh your food and water. Tuna packets, chicken packets, or SPAM singles are good items to keep in here. Some amount of water and water filtration belongs in here and should be double checked. I keep a smaller water bladder and 10 refills worth of purification tablets as well as an inline filter.

Your hygiene kit is also part of your medical supplies. Staying clean keeps you infection free. Don’t neglect shaving tools and brushing your teeth. Any deodorant or wipes should be scent free, in order to prevent detection.

One of the biggest issues we’ve seen in the last few natural disasters is communications. Is your radio charged & programmed? Have you decided which band works best in your area (VHF for rural, UHF for urban)? Does your group or family have a planned radio protocol? Are you carrying your radio? Have you ran a test?

Update your plans based on seasonal issues. If there is a road that has heavy tourism related traffic, remove it from your plan during the tourist season. If there is any new construction, input that into your PACE plans.

Double check your navigation and observation gear. Do you have a compass and recent map? Put either small binoculars or a spotting scope/monocular in the bag. You may or may not carry night optics or thermals in this bag. I generally don’t, unless I was doing something work related that required them. Never mind what….

Batteries, batteries, batteries. Check the dates on the batteries you carry. Carry spare radio batteries. Have a charged battery bank. I carry a solar one, not because the solar panels are great, but because the trickle charge from the solar might keep a radio from dying long enough to get to a better charging solution.

Another item to include is a rain cover. They work great as a rain cover, sure, but mine serves a dual purpose. In my camouflage bags, I keep a black rain cover so that I can make it less tactical looking. The opposite is true my black or gray backpacks – I keep a camo cover in case I need to be more concealed. Think of it as a poncho for the backpack.

Things are getting worse, so make sure that your immediate action gear is ready.

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