Items To Have For Urban Survival/ Bugging In?

I might be strange, but I have multiple carbon steel swords around the house and keep one in the trunk of my Mustang.
They don't need to be recharged or refilled either.

 

In urban areas, one must prepare for the water to be shut off, the electrical feed to be intermittent/absent, and for looting and theft attempts to be constant. Does anyone believe that grocery stores will be stocked?! Yeah, sure!

Gotta have alternate source(s) of water and advanced water purification devices and chemicals (chlorine, activated charcoal, spare ceramic filters, ...).

Gotta have a means, or multiple means, of electrical generation OR the ability to convert to kerosene or some other fuel types to provide light, energy, and heat for cooking.

Gotta have repeating firearms to seriously injure / permanently blind looters/thieves on your property. And repeating arms that can instantly kill or horribly maim those who would break into your home -- such "humans" must be put down hard & rapidly so, such that they cannot get back up.

Food storage, gotta have it. Giant topic as to the many means of doing so.

 

In a urban environment will need to find ways to replenish water supplies. All those industrial sites will be full of chemical contaminants which can make normal water sources not usable. A rain catchment system would be good for a backup but unreliable since droughts or acid rain might be occurring.

 

That's a nice blade, something I could probably take backpacking. You know of anyone who might forge that style that I could buy from?

 

I carry a sword on the gun rack of my truck. While you don't want to bring a knife to a gun fight you don't want to bring a gun to a sword fight. In close quarters a sword is the most devastating weapon ever made and it makes no noise.

The needs in urban survival have several needs that you don't have if you are planning to go Daniel Boone into the woods. You needs burglar tools. Crowbars, bolt cutters, lock picks, mirrors and things to help you quickly, quietly and safely get into locked places. Since you are in a town with paved roads you might want a wagon and duffle bags so you can haul your loot back to your place. Homeless people use grocery carts but a big wheel wagon carries things with less effort.

I have lots and lots of small flashlights and hundreds of batteries. You also want to have some red lenses so you can see immediately close without giving away your location to people that are not near. In a truly dark world you will be amazed by how bright even a small artificial light can be.

After things settle down there will still be a lot of advantages to a nocturnal existence in the dead cities. You don't as easily give away your base location and if you are not part of a big group you are better not seen. I have always been a night person. I see better than most in the dark possibly because I needed glasses when I was little and didn't have them. I can deal well with not seeing things clearly. Whatever the reason, I am like a shadow in the night and prefer it for a lot of things. This is helped along with face paint and the right kind of clothes.

There will be food to be found and scavenged in the cities for a long time. There will be a lot of urban wildlife like pigeons, dogs and rats for meat. Plant root plants for food so people won't rob your garden. Very few city people know what a potato, yam, sweet potato or peanut plants looks like well enough to recognise it if you don't plant in neat little rows.

For the short term I will have night vision goggles and a friend has an old school starlight scope from the vietnam era. Eventually the cities will be little more than jungles with a lot of burned out husks and a few big old stone work buildings. Iife there will be much like life anywhere else. The trick will be in surviving the chaos and the massive death count that will be the first couple of years.

 

In a urban environment need to be cautious of the hazards you can’t see. You might think that being away from industrial sites you are safe but even normal public buildings contain very deadly hazards. Sports arenas ice making machines contain deadly gases which when released can kill very quickly. This past winter in the neighbouring town three trained workers were killed from a ammonia leak with one of them being found outside the arena.

This is only one example but it would be good to research what’s in the area and to plan for these hazards.

 

Where I was raised there were all manner of bad things that are stored that will be deadly after people stop maintaining them. You don't want to be anywhere near to refineries and chemical plants.

Something else you need to consider is exactly where you will be if a dam anywhere above you breaks. In Texas there are HUGE lakes all over the place that provide both water and power to the megalopolises. Without people controlling them and maintaining them they are going to fail. Your only hope might be that the workers open the gates wide before they abandon it. A dam the size I'm talking about will devastate everything for hundreds of miles below it.

Sam Rayburn Reservoir
East Texas, United States
Surface area 114,500 acres (463 km2)
Water volume 3,997,600 acre⋅ft(4.9310 km3)

When this puddle pops you don't want to be anywhere close to its downstream area and it is one of over two hundred manmade lakes in Texas alone.

A lot of people that survive the initial die off will be killed later as the various parts of the infrastructure fall apart. Before you bug out and settle someplace you had better research what is there both as assets and also threasts. I loved living near the coast but without the modern weather services to warn you of storms they will be very hazardous places to live. Before you decide to ride things out in the North you need to think hard about what it will be like when a massive blizzard hits and there won't be any help ever coming to help you dig out. The amount of food and wood that you will have to have ready every winter is a big commitment and if you fail to do it because last winter was mild you will die WHEN the worst case storms hit again.

Like all things survival related it is the art of weighing risk and rewards of any place or action. In order to make the best possible decisions you need as much information as possible. What is the WORST that any given area might throw at you. There are a lot of lovely areas that will be great to live at...until they suddenly become death traps. Imagine the fires that will burn on the west coast when nobody is fighting them. Imagine another Katrina in the Gulf Coast that you didn't know was a hurricane until it WAS. What will your place in Arizona be like if there is a drought. Remember no deep wells because you won't have power so you need to have wind powered well pumps before it happens or you may be in trouble. SOOOO MUCH to think about!!

 

Where I was raised there were all manner of bad things that are stored that will be deadly after people stop maintaining them. You don't want to be anywhere near to refineries and chemical plants.

Something else you need to consider is exactly where you will be if a dam anywhere above you breaks. In Texas there are HUGE lakes all over the place that provide both water and power to the megalopolises. Without people controlling them and maintaining them they are going to fail. Your only hope might be that the workers open the gates wide before they abandon it. A dam the size I'm talking about will devastate everything for hundreds of miles below it.

Sam Rayburn Reservoir
East Texas, United States
Surface area 114,500 acres (463 km2)
Water volume 3,997,600 acre⋅ft(4.9310 km3)

When this puddle pops you don't want to be anywhere close to its downstream area and it is one of over two hundred manmade lakes in Texas alone.

A lot of people that survive the initial die off will be killed later as the various parts of the infrastructure fall apart. Before you bug out and settle someplace you had better research what is there both as assets and also threasts. I loved living near the coast but without the modern weather services to warn you of storms they will be very hazardous places to live. Before you decide to ride things out in the North you need to think hard about what it will be like when a massive blizzard hits and there won't be any help ever coming to help you dig out. The amount of food and wood that you will have to have ready every winter is a big commitment and if you fail to do it because last winter was mild you will die WHEN the worst case storms hit again.

Like all things survival related it is the art of weighing risk and rewards of any place or action. In order to make the best possible decisions you need as much information as possible. What is the WORST that any given area might throw at you. There are a lot of lovely areas that will be great to live at...until they suddenly become death traps. Imagine the fires that will burn on the west coast when nobody is fighting them. Imagine another Katrina in the Gulf Coast that you didn't know was a hurricane until it WAS. What will your place in Arizona be like if there is a drought. Remember no deep wells because you won't have power so you need to have wind powered well pumps before it happens or you may be in trouble. SOOOO MUCH to think about!!