Chances

[cryingfreeman]

In my view, bushcraft a la Ray Mears is not about long-term grid-down survival, but rather it's about staying alive long enough in a wilderness crisis situation to eventually makes one's way back to civilisation. Naturally, if one is even half as adept at it as RM is, then that's bound to be a major plus in a hardcore widespread crisis. But you'd also need to be very fit and in good mental health as well to be able to effectively apply bushcraft knowledge over even a fairly short period (say, 10 days or so) as you make your way out of the wilds.

The whole idea of bugging out to a rural retreat is fraught with manifold pitfalls. Assuming you have a hidden, well-stocked retreat in the first instance, you'll need roads to be open (unless it's close enough to hike to) and petrol stations to be functioning (imagine trying to flee to Wales from London), so right away you'd need to have a head start on the masses, i.e. you see what's unfolding and move before the panic kicks in. So in turn, you would need a profoundly clear understanding of what constitutes your bug out trigger rationale.

Naturally, that train of thought leads to the conclusion that one should already be living at one's retreat at all times. This is the Rawlesian or mainstream American survivalist position. That in turn demands a firm stance on where a retreat should be located and what it should actually consist of. This is where I diverge from the mainstream view; to me, the whole idea of an isolated retreat is very, very dangerous and grounded in an idealised concept of how people will react post SHTF. I argue instead that survival depends on community. Why?

Isolated retreats require disciplined, armed manpower in a grid-down emergency. But:

(a) In the best of times, friends or family staying with you under one roof can be very stressful and lead to petty arguments. How much more so in the stress-filled wake of deep event? Women getting bitchy with each other, children getting restless / bored...
(b) Let's say everyone is well drilled and has some military training. The emergency drags on. Libidos get twitchy. Your young men start to think about other things.
© How many of your group might think it's okay to turn up with x untrained friends / family to drain your supplies?
(d) If someone does lay siege - let's say, some ex special force chaps roaming the remote landscapes looking for just your kind of setup - how long do you think even a well organised and equipped group can last?
(e) With the best will in the world, you can't avoid somebody in your group revealing some part of your preps in the present time, only for word of it to eventually make its way to someone like the kind of chaps described in (d).
(f) If you live there now in your remote retreat - let's say north of the Great Glen in Scotland (which I regard as the best Rawlesian locale in western Europe for reasons I can mention some other time) - can you still make a living to pay the bills in the present? Can you be sure your group members will be able to get to you on time in the event of imminent grid-down? What if you are living there now and you slip and fall outside in a blizzard, breaking a leg / arm / whatever... Imagine it's -20C, 3 am, all roads are closed and all rescue helicopters are grounded. Well done, you've just "Rawlesed" yourself into a nightmare survival scenario.

That's why I personally believe a rural settlement within a tank full of fuel's drive from a hospital is the best bet for now. A settlement gives everyone their own private domestic space and thus avoids the caged animals syndrome of a manned, isolated retreat. It pools key skill sets (if there is a doctor, a nurse, vet, etc) and provides manpower for defence on a basis less likely to wear everyone out. By no means does it guarantee total security, but it's a more formidable challenge for raiders.