Survival Boot Camp Class of 2006

RISE UP AND BE RECOGNIZED!
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August 17, 2006

The First Step
Los Angeles, California

Now, my father has been a lawman all his life. And while he taught us many things about survival, one thing that he always returned to was the idea of a fortified position. Secure your perimeter. If the shit goes down, be prepared for it, dig in and wait. And, believe me, my home is nothing if not secure. Much like the Secret Service not giving away details about the White House, I won’t go into details, suffice to say my girlfriend and I won’t be making any foolish attempts to hit the highway when someone pushes the panic button.

But what about those times when—for whatever reason—you just have to get out. Poison, fires, floods, you name it. Sometimes, quarter-inch steel plate and booby-trapped doorknobs just won’t help you. So you need to be ready.

And even though I knew this, I really hadn’t taken any steps until I had a dream about six months ago. A horrible catastrophe had befallen LA and the hordes were descending upon my home. In this terrible dream, I was only a disembodied observer and I watched helplessly as the throng compromised my home defenses, pushing forward toward my food, water and supplies. To my horror, my girlfriend was home, desperately trying to hold her ground. In the end, the crushing mass of people was too much…

The next day, I awoke and realized that, if pressed, we just weren’t ready to run. That day I assembled the contents of the case you see here (positioned strategically behind the bedroom door). Now, let me be the first to say that a suitcase is poor choice for an ‘escape bag.’ But, it’s all I had available at the time and will be replaced soon. It holds an assortment of equipment for when you need to get out fast: clothes (steel-toe boots, heavy canvas pants, socks, t-shirts, down vest, wide-brim hat), sunscreen, insect repellent, small medical kit (Band-Aids, gauze, medical tape, aspirin, loperamide), two washcloths (stored in a Ziploc bag—could be used for medical dressing), emergency thermal blankets, lighters and matches, candles, industrial flashlights, one roll of toilet paper, one good Bowie knife (and several other knives of lesser quality for use as stakes or for when you can’t/won’t go back to retrieve the knife), money (assortment of small bills), glowsticks, 4-hour Sterno can, heavy-duty sparklers (great for signaling), hand-crank emergency radio, water (4.5 liters—not nearly enough, but a good start), beef jerky, vitamins, mirror, Ziploc bags, and two paperback novels (you never know when you’ll have to kill some time, plus the paper is useful as fuel). Hard to believe that the case holds all that, huh? Well, it does. But it’s still missing some things: water purifier, camp stove, etc. But hopefully these will be added when I upgrade the case to a proper backpack. And hopefully you’ve already taken this first step toward preparedness.

Jeremy Clark
Los Angeles, CA

When not planning for the worst, Jeremy is helping the museum and arts communities as a Principal of Orinda Group.

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