So, after hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with a cou­ple of prep­pers this week, I decid­ed to put togeth­er a list of gear in no par­tic­u­lar order around what you should have at your Bug Out Loca­tion.  Recent­ly I have been chat­ting with a lot of peo­ple around this, and it seems to me that while your preps are impor­tant, if there is a VERY long term event, such as what has recent­ly tak­en place in Japan, even­tu­al­ly you will run out.  You have to be pre­pared to be more self suf­fi­cient and self reliant.  But more posts on that lat­er.  For the moment, here we have the list of gear, at a min­i­mum you must have (in my opin­ion) at your BOL or fall back loca­tion.

• Boots (Two Pair)
• Socks (Wool/Cotton, Min­i­mum of Six Pair of Each)
• Gloves (Leather with wool lin­ers, two pair, Nomex, etc…)
• Under­wear
• BDUs (OD or Dig­i­tal) — Option­al
• Eye pro­tec­tion
• Under­wear / Long Under­wear
• Water­proof Pon­cho / Lin­er
• Field Jack­et & Lin­er
• Sleep­ing Bag suit­able for weath­er con­di­tions
• Sleep­ing pad
• Boonie Hat
• Head Net for mos­qui­toes, bugs, etc…
• Fire Start­ing kit(s)
• Sig­nal Mir­ror
• Back­pack (Alice or oth­er)
• Entrench­ing Tool
• Rifle
• Shot­gun
• Pis­tol
• Holster(s)
• Ammu­ni­tion
• Com­pass
• Flashlight(s)
• Elec­tri­cal Tape
• Duct Tape
• First Aid Kit
• Util­i­ty Knife/Mul­ti-tool
• Var­i­ous knives, such as hunt­ing knives, machete, etc.
• Per­son­al Hygiene kit
• Tent/Personal Shel­ter
• Stove (Ster­no, Hobo, Tri­ox­aine, etc).
• Rope (25 – 50 foot length)
• Roll of 550 para­cord
• Radio
• Binoc­u­lars
• Insect repel­lent
• Mess Kit
• Two Can­teens
• Can­teen cup
• Water purifi­ca­tion sys­tem
• Toi­let Paper / Paper Tow­els
• Pre­scrip­tion drugs, antacids, vit­a­mins, etc…
• Watch / Clocks
• Mon­ey – Enough mon­ey to invest in addi­tion­al sup­plies includ­ing med­ical, ammu­ni­tion, food, sup­plies
• Food – Min­i­mum of one year sup­ply per per­son.  My the­o­ry behind this is that if you are in a VERY long term sit­u­a­tion that you will have to pro­cure pro­tein and oth­er sources of sus­te­nance with­in the year you are liv­ing off your preps.  Such as:
  • Raise Chick­ens
  • Raise Rab­bits
  • Raise goats
  • Raise Cattle/Cows
  • Plant an ample gar­den based on the num­ber of peo­ple in your fam­i­ly
• Canning/Jarring equip­ment and sup­plies
• Com­mu­ni­ca­tions – FRS/GMRS, AM/FM/SW, Scan­ner, CB, HAM (Min­i­mum of two of the men­tioned and at least one receiv­er)
• Basic tools
  • Saw
  • Ham­mers
  • Axe
  • Sledge Ham­mer
  • Shov­els
  • Plan­er
• Library of books you feel you want and or need to keep you enter­tained and learn­ing while you are there.
• Maps (road and topo­graph­i­cal)

Help me out here.  What did I miss?

Oh, and I pur­pose­ful­ly kept items off of here such as 1000 rounds of ammo, hel­met, etc…  I want­ed to focus pri­mar­i­ly on nat­ur­al dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness here, but keep in mind regard­less of the sit­u­a­tion, you may have to be pre­pared to defend your posi­tion, fam­i­ly, gear, and preps… Enough on that for now, how­ev­er.