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Post by Gingerbread Man on Nov 18, 2013 12:31:08 GMT
I was re-evaluating my Get Home Plan (GHP) and my Get Home Bag (GHB). I revisisted my GHB and fine tuned it to 20 lbs. Seen here: freedomandliberty.boards.net/thread/6/gingerbread-mans-get-home-bagNow, after hearing the report of 6 shootings over the weekend ( www.wvoc.com/articles/wvoc-news-146213/6-shot-2-die-in-richland-11833517/) with 2 being fatal I re-evaluated my Get Home Route (GHR). I messed around with Bing Maps and by doing that I modified my GHR down 0.7 miles and shaved 15 minutes of the total time. These shootings took place in a very high crime area that was smack dab in the middle of my route and at least 1/4 of the total distance. I was never comfortable with the idea of a disaster that forced me to walk through an area infested with crime in "good" times. My re-route takes me miles away from this area and shaves time. Winning. I also modified my footwear. Normally, I wear dress shoes to work but I hate them because they suck for walking. I recently purchased a pair of sketchers that have an athletic shoe bottom with a dress shoe top. These feel exactly like my jogging shoes, excellent. Now, I propose this: Have you created a GHP? Do you have a GHB? Have you recently re-evaluated? If so, let's chat!
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Post by NoAm (Jen) on Nov 18, 2013 22:08:41 GMT
We each have a GHB in our vehicles. Daughter being the closest to home can easily do the 2.7 miles via road (or 2 miles via friendly neighborhoods)in no time. I am 2nd at 6.1 driving miles or 5 miles cutting through woods but a more difficult path. Ken tops it off at 14.4 miles and would have to go through quite a bit of Interstate or main road areas. With that being said, out routes would take minutes, hours/up to half a day (depending on what was going on, on the route.) Each vehicle has a back up pair of hiking boots. For weekends, we generally travel within 30-45 minutes of the house. When we are an hour or 2 out, a GHB per person goes in.
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Post by nxp on Nov 19, 2013 18:56:48 GMT
Great thread. I'm going to expound when I have more than a moment's time. Watch for an edit.
nXp
EDIT - Bet ya thought I forgot about this on, eh?
I work 32 miles one way from home. Travel time is interstate, which copious county roads going from city-plex to city. Switching to a county road option (which has been done multiple times due with inclement weather, traffic backups, etc) adds a bit more milage on to the count.
There is a train route that could be reached within a few miles of work/home but it's industrial not passenger and they frown on walking the tracks.
I did attempt a "BO-Walk" this last summer. It sucked. Seriously, sucked. And it's not because I'm an overweight slob that uses wheeled transportation, I walk/run everywhere during the day at my job, I'm always on my feet and moving - hint, this is where it bit me in the rear end.
Fact of the matter, after being on my feet all day I was spent and my feet had had it. Wrong shoes for high milage, tired feet, and urban/country traversing landed me at mile 15 with being pooped, sore, and running out of daylight quick. Any thoughts of doing making it home afterwork during viable sunlight was a nogo. So, regroup and buy ice - time to rethink this.
In the event of incliment weather, I can stay at my job until the threat passes. I have access to food/bed/cable/you name it. That said, in the event of a serious issue (mass casuality/bio/etc) my work will become overrun immediately, yay hospitals. This will greatly effect my ability to leave. Toss on there natural barriers, and it starts getting complicated.
What I've come up with, is the good ol' midwestern idea of shelter in place if you're stuck and find a fast mode of transport if you must move. I'm looking into a bike for the spring/summer/fall that can hang out in the car as I go to-from work. Doesn't need to be fancy, just available, dependable, and comfortable. In the winter, there's always a snowkit in the car, along with my icefishing gear and float suit, but really sheltering in place is a better idea. Family knows what to expect, I've done this job for years, they're used to seeing me later in the week if I'm stuck somewhere.
Still evaluating routes, transportation methods, and above all else safety from Ma Nature. Idiots will be idiots, and can't be fully accounted for, but enviromental safety can be.
I'll poke more holes at this later....
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Post by shiddymunkie on Nov 20, 2013 1:54:01 GMT
I live about 15 miles away from where I work, and so I'd like my GHP to avoid having to walk that distance if at all possible. What sort of situations are we talking about where we would be unable to drive our car, get a ride with someone else, get a taxi, catch a bus, take the RTD lightrail/train, or even bunker down in the office for a day or two (yet be able to walk home)?
Right now, my (theoretical) GHB is less about how I am going to travel home and more about surviving the initial 'catastrophe', whatever that may be. For example, items to help me survive things like:
- a shooter in the building - building is on fire - tornado (or less likely, an earthquake) has hit and I need to escape the building
I suppose I could include some items to help guard against an infectious disease? Seems pretty unlikely that I'd need it, but some latex gloves and a mask take up very little space/weight. Plus, they can be used for other things too (mask to avoid smoke inhalation, gloves for treating wounds, etc.)
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Post by Browning35 on Nov 24, 2013 17:53:15 GMT
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Post by Gingerbread Man on Nov 24, 2013 17:58:35 GMT
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Post by Browning35 on Nov 24, 2013 18:34:13 GMT
Cool. Just wondering.
I have a pair of Rockports like that. They're my wedding/funeral shoes right now. For work we have to wear boots, but when I switch to being hospital based that'll change.
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Post by shiddymunkie on Nov 24, 2013 19:32:45 GMT
I have a pair of these, and wonder if they share the same insole. Its like a pillow-topper, and it's amazing comfortable!
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Post by LowKey on Aug 20, 2014 2:25:53 GMT
I'm looking into a bike for the spring/summer/fall that can hang out in the car as I go to-from work. Doesn't need to be fancy, just available, dependable, and comfortable. In the winter, there's always a snowkit in the car, along with my icefishing gear and float suit, but really sheltering in place is a better idea. Fatbike. Go with a fatbike. They handle snow quite nicely.
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Post by LowKey on Aug 20, 2014 2:31:18 GMT
Hmm. This is a bit of a tricky question for me. Get home "local housing", get home "nearest family", or get home "HOME"? Likewise, how far off the rails have things run? Keep in mind, I work on a military base in the M.E. and my wife and I live on the economy. To add an additional level of challenge, she's not a US citizen and still does not have a visa for the US (working on that). So, if the camel dung strikes the palm fronds AND the base I'm on doesn't get locked down, I drive with all the aggressiveness needed to get through the local traffic patterns to our apartment. This includes violations of just about every traffic code they have here (which is the daily norm for most drivers in this country). If needed I can hoof it the 20 miles cross country, open desert mostly and I'm very well acclimated after a decade in the region. Once there we hunker down or evac depending on circumstances. Evac if needed by commercial air, US government air if I can get my wife on board, or in extremis I borrow one of the many yachts a few blocks away. If things went all "Hollywood", I do have access to (and skill with) very large tracked armored vehicles...that would certainly eliminate any difficulty getting to the apartment. While I think that senario has about as much likelihood of occurring as Neo telling me I'm the chosen one it is one that folks working here like to toss around when BSing at the water cooler . Getting home to any of the other locations requires air travel (needing only cash and travel documents), or in a Mad Max world a very long trip combining land and sea. Really my/our best B/O plan is to finish up the $tuff that keep$ me working in thi$ indu$try and finally settle down at our home where we will be bugging in for anything and any routine travel will be within 30 miles by land or boat.
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Post by NamelessStain on Aug 20, 2014 11:51:09 GMT
Well I have a GHB in the trunk with better socks and minimal supplies so the weight is around 12# including 2 liters of water already in it. I'm about 8 miles from "home" right now. The bag has an empty bladder which I can fill at the office if need be. Most of the road home is storefront and warehouses. It wouldn't be too bad imo. I'm guessing a 3 hourish walk home.
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Post by Browning35 on Aug 20, 2014 14:01:54 GMT
To answer the question to get home either drive in my truck or two feet and a heartbeat with a GHB in tow. A few days ago I revised the contents and it's on another thread in here. I don't want to go spamming the contents and pics everywhere though.
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Post by MrEMonkey on Sept 25, 2014 0:32:54 GMT
I'm working on updating stuff for my truck; I swear, at this age, it's easier to just take an extra couple changes of clothes for the munchkin than to keep a set of clothes in the truck. Either way, there's not really a serious plan for a bug-out by foot. Being fairly geographically isolated has its own pros and cons--driving about an hour (minimum) to get ANYWHERE makes hiking more like plan c. Or d.
Work is about the same. As nice as it is to have a work truck, it does limit some of the things I can keep in it. No weapons of any sort, for starters. I do keep a little extra food and water in my work bag; I need to add some longer term foodstuffs in the truck, but if poo strikes oscillating blades of any sort while I'm at work, my plan is to either ride it out for the day, or get home ASAP, depending on the poo, the blades, rotation speed, and so forth.
Edit: Do have a couple of alternate routes home, depending on incident and road conditions--every direction home from work involves 40-50 miles and at least one bridge. Unless for some reason I really need to take the long way around--then we're looking at unpaved, occasionally maintained (but rarely traveled) dirt roads, at least double that distance, and still a bridge or two.
Granted, getting across the river with bridges out, and only what I can keep in my work truck is pretty low on the "things I worry about" list, but it is something I ought to consider, I suppose.
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Post by Gingerbread Man on Nov 6, 2014 15:40:56 GMT
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Post by Browning35 on Nov 7, 2014 14:17:12 GMT
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