Have A Plan and Practice It

I'm holding off on the firearm selection posts for a week, to address something particularly timely: it's the beginning of fire season here in Utah, and things are already getting rough. As I type this, there is a 10,000+ acre wildfire burning in the county just to the south of me, and over 3,000 homes and 13,000 individuals have been evacuated. One home has been destroyed so far, and about a dozen have had some minor damage, thanks to aggressive efforts from local fire crews.

The evacuation was a grand mess, however. Part of this is due to the area having only one road out, and part was due to less-than-ideal planning on the part of both the residents and the municipality; the area in question has had no less than 7 major wildfires in the past decade. Some are naturally caused, and some caused by human stupidity. They happen enough that anybody but a first year resident has experienced one. Sadly, many have not learned much from their experience, but we can.

Everywhere in the USA that people live has some kind of disaster that happens frequently enough to plan for: northern blizzards, coastal hurricanes, midwestern tornadoes, fires, floods, and other events happen with regularity, enough that building codes and city planning are engineered for them, and hopefully local authorities have them as part of their public works and community response plan. Local residents also need to plan for these events.

The Basics of a Plan

• A plan needs to be detailed and specific enough to act upon, but flexible enough to adapt to the circumstances at hand. 
• Without details, you're left spiraling out of control, grasping for direction. While 12% of a plan beats 11% of a plan, it's not enough. 
• Too rigid a plan, on the other hand, falls apart quickly, giving rise to the adage "No plan survives first contact with reality" or, more gutterally, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." 
• When Plan A fails, you need to be able to shift to Plans B, C, D, and on down the line. This may involve having several routes of travel, or a backup ending point, or allowing for any number of other variables.

Plans don't have to be huge, either. They can be as simple as a fire drill, which was something we practiced when I was a kid (being the son of a firefighter leads to certain things.) We also learned to stage hoses, buckets of water, and other supplies when we were setting off fireworks. Plans can also be as simple as knowing where emergency exits are in a building, and prioritizing which order you'll attempt them in.

Practice, Practice, Practice
Having a plan isn't enough, though. You need to practice your plan, and practicing your plan just during convenient times isn't enough, either; you need to practice in a variety of circumstances.

• If it's an evacuation plan, run it at different times of day and evening, in varying weather, and in all seasons. Summer traffic, or schooltime traffic, or winter weather can dramatically effect travel times and available routes. 
• If it's a bug-in plan, figure out what it takes to be comfortable in your home for extended periods in every season. If one good thing comes of the current global pandemic, it's that folks are getting some firsthand experience with this.

It all boils down to this: Make a plan, test your plan, amend your plan. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Lokidude

Prudent Prepping: EDC Story

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Now we concentrate  on what to do in, and how to plan for, the long term via Prudent Prepping.

Every Day Carry: 
Why Every Day 
Should Also Mean All Day

This is a story about a Guy who planned things out and did his best to be prepared, but didn't remember that: "Every Day" means "All Day and All Night."

There once was a Guy who had a small group of friends that got together very infrequently due to location, work schedules and family responsibilities. Usually, the group would meet at someone's place, and go out to dinner and a movie. But this night the plan changed to stay in and watch a marathon of really good movies.

Pizzas were delivered (twice!), refreshments made available, and the movies were stacked up and ready to go. Did I mention refreshments? Yeah, everybody was really 'freshed' by the second movie.

Now, This Guy had planned on the evening starting with going out to eat. Since he didn't like the Batman Utility Belt look on his off time, having to wear a Leatherman, a flashlight, a cell phone and a small pouch holding a pen, pencil and spiral notebook while at work, everything but the phone had been put into his salesman bag and was left in his truck, alongside his Get Home Bag. The plan was to spend the night wherever he ended up, so keeping all his stuff in the truck until morning was normal.

When the party wrapped after the fourth movie at 2 AM and the the guy settled in on the couch, things appeared normal -- or as normal as a buzzed and pizza-ed out Guy expected things to be.

When the apartment building's fire alarm went off about 3:30 and the electricity was out too, things went 'non-linear' very quickly. This Guy went to grab his flashlight as his friends came out of the bedroom looking for their flashlights. Theirs had dead batteries and his was three stories down and in Visitor Parking.

This complex had a lot of students, so about twice a year somebody would pull the alarm and freak the residents out. Therefore, not much was thought of this situation until somebody ran down the hall, banging on doors yelling "FIRE!".

When the door was opened, smoke was present and coming from both ends of the hallway, where the stairwells were located. Going back into the apartment and walking out onto the balcony, smoke could be seen coming from a downstairs unit, pretty thick and fast.

Now, the residents of this building liked to prop open the stairwell doors to help cool down the upper floors, which allowed the upper hallway to fill with smoke quickly. Very quickly. In two minutes smoke was so thick the layer was down to three feet off the floor and lowering fast.

This Guy and the other guy banged on doors to make sure everyone was awake and aware of what was happening and got people calmed down and into an apartment on the opposite side of the building from the fire. The smoke was much less there, and the people calmed down a bit. The two guys went out into the hallway to close doors to the units as well as the stairwell doors.

However, the stairwell doors were impossible to get to; smoke kept building up and panic was starting to set in, so the decision was made to go over the balcony and climb down. Directly below were two young women absolutely freaking out and wanting to jump from the second story onto a cement courtyard. One of the guys climbed down and calmed them, and then prepared to help get eight people off the 3rd floor balcony, along with the 12 other people who were trapped on the 2nd floor on the fire side of the building.

By the time the Fire Department arrived, the two guys had all but six people on the ground, and those were the folks who were not up to going over the side of a balcony, stepping down onto someone's shoulders, and then being helped to reach the railing and then on to the floor. Ladders are great.

After everyone was on the ground, the friends started to look for other folks who lived in the complex, especially one of the movie viewers who lived above where the fire started but on the opposite side of the hall. They couldn't find him.

It turns out he banged on doors on the second floor, getting people woken up and out of the building, and then went looking for his friends. Not seeing them, he went BACK into the smoke-filled burning building to the 3rd floor as everyone was climbing down to the second floor balcony and died from smoke inhalation.

It didn't help that he had about twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system and was overweight and out of shape. This Guy having his flashlight wouldn't have saved him, either.

What would have made a difference is This Guy talking to his friends about simple steps for disaster prepping:

• Have a plan for getting out of your house, apartment or even the room you're in if something goes wrong. 
• Have a meet-up spot planned for every place you go in case people are separated. 
• Get and share phone numbers with everyone in your group. Even if cell service is down temporarily, you can check in later. 
• Carry what you know you need to carry. All the time 

So This Guy is now looking for a man purse/sling bag, sized to a hold B&N Nook or Kindle Fire reader along with his EDC items, and looking professional instead of Tacti-cool. The less MOLLE, the better.

No closing line or funny disclaimer. 
Make a plan and keep yourselves safe.