My Thoughts on the Rule of Threes in the Suburbs and a SHTF Situation

Today, I want­ed to dis­cuss the Rule of 3’s, but not the stan­dard Rule of 3’s.  These are my addi­tions to the Rule of 3’s that I see as mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in decid­ing to pre­serve your­self in a SHTF in the sub­urbs or an urban set­ting…

Any sur­vival­ist, mil­i­tary per­son­nel, or some­one schooled in the val­ue of self preser­va­tion should know about the “Rule of 3’s”  If you don’t, Google the “The Rule of 3’s” and sift through all the posts that come up on it.  I am not going to get into it here.  How­ev­er, I have been giv­ing some thought to some addi­tions to the Rule of 3’s in a SHTF sit­u­a­tion in the Urban or Sub­ur­ban envi­ron­ment.  Here is what I am com­ing up with.

When the SHTF in the sub­urbs, “my opin­ion” is the fol­low­ing from three (3) sec­onds to three (3) months post SHTF:

• From the time you learn of a SHTF or are involved in a SHTF, you have three (3) sec­onds to make a deci­sion to mobi­lize based on your SHTF plan­ning.
• If you pan­ic in a sit­u­a­tion you have three (3) minutes tops to STOP and get back on track with a deci­sion.
  • Sit
  • Think
  • Observe
  • Plan
• You have three (3) hours to coor­di­nate with fam­i­ly or your team to decide to bug out, bug in, or meet at your ren­dezvous loca­tion to take the next steps in your mobi­liza­tion plan.
• You have three (3) days max­i­mum to reach your first safe Cache, Bug Out Loca­tion, Fall Back Loca­tion, or des­ti­na­tion for psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty, to imple­ment the next phase of your plan­ning.  If Bug­ging In, you have three days to coor­di­nate with fam­i­ly, take inven­to­ry of your preps, and make sure your plan is work­able dur­ing the dura­tion of the SHTF sit­u­a­tion.
• You have three (3) weeks to get used to the new sit­u­a­tion you are in, come up with a new plan of action, or con­tin­ue on course with your exist­ing plan cre­at­ing nor­mal­cy in your life/lives whether bug­ging in or in a new envi­ron­ment after bug­ging out.
• You have three (3) months to be in full swing with your new plan and new life post SHTF, what­ev­er that may be…

The only part of this that can be redun­dant is to STOP.  Every­thing else is “go for­ward” and in a SHTF, you can­not go back­wards, so your plans must be sol­id before the SHTF.  You may mod­i­fy your plans, but mod­i­fy­ing plans sug­gest oper­a­tional aware­ness of what is going on around you.  Admit­ted­ly, some of my plans are not as sol­id as they should be in some areas.  But, in the event of a SHTF, my exten­sion of the Rule of three­’s above will help me shel­ter in of get the hell out of Dodge to safe­ty.

Of course, much of this is depen­dent on the type of SHTF sit­u­a­tion you are in.  You have to decide for your­self what is per­ma­nent or semi per­ma­nent…

Making a Situation Manageable

If this is a lit­tle much for you to fath­om, try break­ing down the three days into three hour incre­ments and com­part­men­tal­iz­ing the sit­u­a­tion.  Do the same for three weeks, break it into three day blocks to make deci­sions or to set mini goals to keep you going if you are a lit­tle over­whelmed, etc., etc…