Can You Be Crisis Ready In the Suburbs?
Spend a couple of hours researching crisis readiness online, and you’ll come across the common advice to sell your house in the city and move to a rural location. If you are serious about insulating your household from potential threats, this isn’t necessarily bad advice.
Living in a rural location away from cities decreases population density, increases self-reliance, and creates a buffer between you and mass civilization. However, for the majority of us, moving to the countryside isn’t a practical option. Whether it’s due to work, family, or personal reasons, a lot of us will be living in cities or suburbs for the foreseeable future. If this is you, how can you stay put, but still be as prepared as possible?
Know Your Disaster Threats
If you are a suburbanite, you need to start by understanding the limitations of your living situation. You most likely have an HOA that prohibits things like raising chickens in your backyard. Your municipal code probably limits you to storing no more than twenty gallons of spare fuel. If you have a backyard garden, it’s a small one. The list goes on.
But the biggest drawback of living in or near a city is your proximity to other people. While we can assume that most of your neighbors are nice people with good intentions, the problem goes well outside of the bounds of your immediate neighborhood. Cities and metro areas are packed with hundreds of thousands or millions of individuals, many of whom will resort to violence if things get dire. Just ask yourself: what would the average person be willing to do if they went without food for a week?
If you live in a metro area of 1 million people, and only 1% of them break during a societal crisis, that’s still 10,000 people who may be willing to resort to violence to access food, water, and shelter. Not to mention the criminal class of society that already participates in this behavior during normal rule of law. And if a major crisis comes to pass in your area, law enforcement may be overrun and unavailable to help you.
The point of this hypothetical scenario is not to scare you, but simply to illustrate the risks of living in or around a city. You are surrounded by a multitude of unknown individuals who may be willing to do bad things when the rule of law fails.
Are you starting to see why people recommend moving out of the city? It makes sense in theory, but again, for many of us, it just isn’t practical or even possible.
So what should you do?
Have a Plan to Shelter in Place
If the power goes out for a week due to a natural disaster, all hell won’t break loose. As history shows, there may be opportunistic looting and violence, but not on a major scale. First responders are likely still responding to 9-1-1 calls, utility companies are working to get power back on, and government services are operational.
In this scenario, follow a standard disaster plan and rely on stored food and water to avoid going out in public if possible until power and utilities are restored. A good rule of thumb is having enough stored food and water at home to last you at least two weeks.
Have a Plan to Evacuate
But what if the power goes out and doesn’t come back on? Supply chains will grind to a halt, grocery stores will go empty, clean drinking water will be unavailable, and people will begin to realize that things are going to get much worse before they get better.
In the United States, we have not experienced a disaster like this, so it can be hard to imagine. The closest example that comes to mind for many is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
However, an extended grid-down scenario could happen due to many realistic threats, such as a cyber attack, solar storm, or major natural disaster (such as a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake in the PNW).
In a crisis environment, law enforcement will be stretched thin to handle the sudden spike in crime, looting, and rioting. And if things stretch out for months, how many police will stay on the job rather than be home with their families to provide security?
The takeaway: as a responsible citizen in the suburbs, it’s important for you to stay ahead of the curve. If things are deteriorating, you don’t want to stick around to find out how it ends.
Let’s say your city experiences a power outage that lasts for several days. Is it something typical that will pass, or is something else going on? Start asking questions early to avoid being caught off guard. Another example could be civil unrest and rioting. Does the problem seem to be confined to a specific part of town, or are things getting out of control?
The goal is to anticipate threats before they become all-out emergencies. If you feel that a problem is getting worse, it may be time to get out of town.
Where Do You Go?
Similar to the advice of moving to a rural location, you’ve probably heard the advice to have a bug-out location you can evacuate to if things get bad. But similar to the former advice, having a second property for emergencies is impractical, or unattainable, for many people.
So if things get bad and you have to evacuate your home in the suburbs, where should you go?
Your first step is to answer this question now – not in a real emergency. The good news is that you don’t need to own a property to have a list of potential bug-out locations. Start with private properties outside of your city, such as hotels, and expand from there. Do you have family or friends in other areas that you could stay with? Get creative and you’ll most likely find more options than you’d expect.
Parting Thoughts
Just because you live in the suburbs or the city doesn’t mean that you can’t be ready for a crisis. You just need to understand your limitations, and the increased threats you may face if things go sideways. By having a clear picture of what you may face, you can plan ahead and keep your family secure, whether the crisis calls for hunkering down, or getting out of dodge.
