When is it time to get out of Dodge? Experts have their say, Part 4

This is Part 4 of a 4-part series in which experts from all parts of the country and areas of expertise weigh in on the big question, “When do I know it’s time to get out of Dodge?” There is no one-size-fits-all answer, which is why I wanted you to get a wide variety of opinions and observations.

Be sure to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, to hear from James Rawles, Claire Wolfe, Rob Hanus, and many more.

From Fernando Aguirre (FerFAL), author and blogger at The Modern Survivalist

I think that the first question to answer is why are you leaving. How is it that you are improving your situation by doing that? In general, the standard answer is that you only leave when staying isn’t an option. Staying in a secured, known location, where you have assets, supplies and a network of people you know and trust is the best thing to do as long as you can do it.

Leaving makes sense when there’s a true risk and evacuation is the wisest course of action. If there’s flooding, tornado, or storm warning and your area is recommended to be evacuated, then it makes a lot of sense to leave. Sometimes it’s disasters like a house fire, gas leak, or nearby industrial accident that forces you out with very short notice. Again, it’s not as if you have much of a choice other than to leave.

Now, and maybe this is where it gets more complicated, should you leave because of economic instability, civil unrest threats, or rioting on the streets? The answer here is generally no. You don’t really fix the economy by evacuating or relocating. Take it from someone that’s been through more protests, roadblocks, and looting than I care to remember, when there’s out of control crime and rioting on the street, the best thing to do is to close all doors and shelter in place until the situation defuses.

Hopefully, you have somewhat hardened your home and have a proper tool for defending yourself and your family. No matter how bad looting and rioting get, it eventually dies off, and it’s much safer to stay put than risk traveling when criminals are rampaging on broad daylight. In terms of bugging out because of an economic crisis or even an economic collapse, how would it help? What you need is an income to keep the bills paid, and running doesn’t solve that unless you’re moving somewhere where you have better job opportunities.

There are some cases in which staying or leaving is even more confusing and not that obvious. Here, to a degree, it becomes a matter of personal choices and the standards of living you consider acceptable.

If an economic crisis or collapse causes a significant decrease in the quality of life in your state or country, then I see the wisdom in leaving to greener pastures. It’s not easy but when the situation has degraded enough, it may get to a point where things aren’t going to get much better for years to come. The level to which things have degraded may be beyond your tolerable standards. In my case, I left Argentina because the level of crime, cultural and social degradation was so big I simply didn’t consider it acceptable anymore.

Something similar may happen during social and cultural uprisings as seen in the Arab world. When there are threats of war or higher than acceptable risks for the civilian population, especially when a specific ethnic or religious group is being persecuted, in that case, you may also want to consider bugging out, maybe even bugging out abroad to a different country.

As you see, it’s not always that clear, and what some people may consider acceptable in some cases may not be acceptable for others. Either way, I believe that no matter want you should still have plans for evacuation in case you are left with no other option.

From Jim Cobb, author of Prepper’s Home Defense

One of the most common questions I get, just behind What kind of gun should I buy? and just ahead of, Who sells the best-tasting dehydrated food? is “How will I know it is time to bug out?”  Variations of this include “How will I know this is the event?” and “How can I get out before the crowd?”

It is very difficult to give any sort of concrete answer to these questions because they are, at least in part, very subjective.  For almost all potential scenarios, my pat answer is to remain at home until such a time that home is no longer tenable or safe.  But, I’ll readily admit that is side-stepping the actual question.

Here, then, are some indicators, “red flags” if you will, that things are likely to get much worse before they get better.

Stores aren’t seeing stock coming in.

We’ve all heard the statistic that grocery stores only have about 3 days’ worth of stock at any given time. While that figure varies depending on the item, such as having enough toiletries to last a typical month but enough fresh meat to only last a couple of days, the average for the store, on the whole, is likely stock levels to last a week or less. If something causes disruption to the replenishment process, that not only makes it difficult to purchase food and other supplies, the secondary result is people begin to panic.

In our modern society, most people are accustomed to immediate gratification. They want something so they go to the store and buy it.  Now, how often have you run to the store to pick up something, and upon arriving you learn they don’t have it in stock?  It makes you feel frustrated, maybe even angry.  How dare they not have the new season of Justified on DVD!

Now, imagine that instead of a set of DVDs, it is canned vegetables, milk, or bread and your family is already getting pretty hungry. One of the first things we’ll see in the wake of a major event is store shelves not being stocked. The disruption may only be for a few days but you don’t want to be around when people find out they can’t get food from their normal sources.

You hear eyewitness accounts of looting in your area.

I want to stress the “eyewitness” part of that. In chaotic situations, rumors are guaranteed to be flying left and right. Case in point – think back to all the rumors you heard about what went on inside the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. No doubt about it, there were bad things going on but, as far as I know, the rumors about infants being killed were never proven to be anything but stories.

So, if you hear that a neighbor was told by a friend of their cousin who heard from a guy down their block that their uncle saw some looters, you might take it with a grain of salt. However, if said neighbor instead tells you he saw a band of ne’er do wells going house to house as he was coming back from scouting the area, that’s a sure sign things are likely to be heading south quickly.

Emergency services are overwhelmed.

As we’ve seen in the aftermath of major disasters like Hurricane Katrina and various tornadoes in Oklahoma, law enforcement agencies as well as other emergency services can easily become overwhelmed. Please do not take this as a gripe against them.

Thousands and thousands of good men and women work in those fields and do the very best they can to respond to emergencies large and small.  However, they are only human and they have limits.  They can’t be in two places at once and there are only so many of them to go around.

At some point, triage will have to take place and decisions made as to which emergencies are more important than others. This happens every day, actually. Police dispatchers routinely need to determine which 911 calls get priority when things get really busy. A traffic accident with possible fatalities on a major highway takes precedence over a complaint about an out-of-season campfire in a backyard (yes, people call 911 for such inane complaints).

However, after a major event, staffing levels may drop due to officers having been injured in the disaster, being ill, or just plain wanting to remain at home with their families and this will result in many calls for assistance going unchecked for longer periods of time, if responded to at all.  Even if attendance at roll call is 100%, the sheer volume of requests for help may become too much for any department to fully bear.  In the event that takes place, you really don’t want to be one of the people standing around, waiting for a squad car to arrive and hoping they’ll resolve a problem for you.

Above all else, trust your gut.  If that voice in the back of your head is telling you it is time to head out, do so.  You may only have one chance to get out ahead of everyone else and make it to your secondary destination rather than end up in the middle of an interstate that has become a large parking lot.

From James Smith, The Covert Prepper