What would you do?

You're at work when the balloon goes up. The civil defense sirens begin to wail and you run for cover (if you're over 40 you run for cover, if you're under 40 you laugh to yourself because some idiot doesn't know how to disarm his car alarm before he gets in). You grab the emergency bag you've had in your desk for a year or two and your EDCs and head straight for the company's basement (yes, there are basements even in California) where you pile in with several paniky people, stacks of boxes containing company records, and that IT guy known to have a digestion problem. Someone pulls the chain overhead to turn on the one light in the room and a couple guys shove a heavy metal door closed and lock it to keep anyone else from getting in. Everyone is dead quiet and the only sound you hear is the air rushing through the ventilation register. Then a cellphone rings followed by another and everyone else tries desperately to call out. All of a sudden the underground room is jerked sideways. You hear screams from both men and women, then the light goes out. The screams are replaced with anxious silence and you notice the air has stopped flowing into the room. The only illumination is from cellphone LCDs as people hopelessly attempt to contact their loved ones. You hear muted screams from people outside scratching to get into the basement and escape the fallout but no one moves to open the door. You know it's only a matter of time, a brief amount of time, when you will be forced to go outside and face the scourge because of the lack of air. You recall preparing for such an event but didn't really think it would be necessary, until now. You had emergency lighting well covered since you were a nut about flashlights, and you even thought of keeping some Mayday food bars and packets of water along with first aid supplies and foul weather protection all which fit neatly inside the bag you kept in the bottom drawer of your desk. You are quite confident that you could make the two-mile trek back home (if your home is still there) on foot, but should you leave now and try to beat the fallout, or wait a few hours until the main threat has dissipated and tough it out in the room with everyone else. Problem is you have enough provisions to last you a couple of days, but little more than a snack if you shared it with everyone else in there with you. Once you did start eating do you think you'd have a choice? Do you make a run for it, or grab your trusty ARC-LS and lead everyone out of the darkness and into the unknown?

I honestly don't think this scenario is that far fetched. Some of us prepare as best we can for what we may think is inevitable but have we considered what we would really do with the options presented to us? I'm old enough to remember the pissing contest between Kennedy and the Soviets over the Bay of Pigs in the '60's and how my folks (and everybody else in the neighborhood) stocked up on canned goods and stored them in a clothes closet (mine!) in case of an atomic attack (rent the movie "Panic in the Year Zero" if you really want to experience the feeling of those times). A pretty futile attempt at civil defense, but are we really better off now that it is our turn? Just a thought.

Mike-

I would not go to the company basement. I would get in my truck and get up wind as soon as possible. I might have to drive over all kinds of stuff as the roads will be full of panicing people. As for equipment I would always have with me my BOB. It stays in the truck all the time and includes the following:

Glock 17 & 200 rounds of 124gr. speer gold dots

Busse Combat Battle Mitress (the toughest bowie knife in the world)

Water purification tablets

MSR waterfilter

Nalgene water bottle

Two collapseable two quart water bottles

Well stocked first aid kit

MSR blacklight cook set/ eating cooking tools

200 feet paracord

several firestarters

Deet insect repellant

small fixed blade knife

Two 9'x12' plastic drop cloths.

I even have toilet paper in a ziplock bag.
Sounds crazy? I've used almost all of the stuff at one time or the other. Including the toilet paper this week.

There is other stuff in the kit that I can't recall right now. It's all stuffed into a blackhawk cyclone hydration system and weights about 15 pounds. With proper survival skills a person can live for years on the above items or less.

As for an illumination tool I still need to get one for the above kit. Right now I would grab the m3 and m6 and a few boxes of batteries, not the ideal long term use light at all.

Jeff

I remember "Panic in the Year Zero". A better movie came out later. Do you remember "The Day After"?

Jeff:

Great listing and alternative scenario. I just noticed that I probably posted this to the wrong forum. Sorry.

Dana:

Yeah, I remember that too. "The Day After" was pretty depairing where I thought "Panic in the Year Zero" at least depicted, albiet naively, hope for those that survived.

budlight,

Take a look at Frugal's Survival Forums , lots of information on all sorts of survival tactics & equipment.

Moving to the Cafe (I certainly need a drink of something!)

Al

Umm, do we even have civil defense sirens? We had tornado sirens, at least in the midwest, around here I don't think we even have those.

If we do have them they haven't been switched on in 40 years, so they wont work anyway.

I don't think the scenario of getting any warning from the ICBM sensors over the pole is the most likely way this would happen. You won't have any warning because it will be set off somewhere locally by some guy driving a stolen one around in a truck.

This used to keep me awake at night as a kid in the late 70's, watching the day after later on didn't help.

Hey budlight,
How could you even hear the civil defense sirens with all those damn TRAIN WHISTLES???
The BNSF corridor is about 120 yds from my driveway. It's where I do my limited beam-testing of my better stuff.........

I would simply sit and wait for the detonation: good riddance to me.

Jackblades:

I hear ya! Fortunately we are up the hill from the BNSF and miss it but we like to watch the city counsel proceedings on cable. Unfortunately we are pretty close to Brea where they had a NIKE farm years ago and I'm sure those commies haven't updated their database!

Mike

Well, for me the building has 2000 people in it, and no basement. (Actually, under the building is an interconnected series of main sewer lines from the city of Albany. No joy there.)

The agency I work for would be one of the first responders, so I'd be working, unless Albany was the actual target. In this case, I'd be cut to ribbons, as above mentioned building is all open space, and almost all windows. If the event were somewhere in the NY area, but not Albany, I'd do my job as best as possible.

At home, a different story. I won't get into specifics, but for someone with the constraints of renting, I think I'm fairly well prepared.

I'm far less worried about any of this now that the USSR isn't a USSR.

Some years ago, I would have been in Jeff's position.... I was a semi-survivalist: Prepared but not fanatical about it or spending much time or energy worying about it.

NOW? I wouldn't do much of anything- Wouldn't go to the basement, wouldn't "bug out". I'd just watch. If a nuke goes off near me, I don't really want to die slowly of radiation sickness, or watch everyone else die slowly. Same with bio-weapons.

It would probably be different if I had young kids or anyone that really needs me. But since I don't I can be a fatalist: when it is my time to go, I'll go with no regrets.