How far to evacuate?

[Scythe13]

This is something I've been considering for a while now, how far away from a threat zone would be safe to evacuate to?

From a fire, it's pretty simple and common sense. But there are other situations that may not be so obvious. For example if you see groups people with eyes pouring, noses running and possibly even mouth foaming, it's time to run, as that's likely to be a chemical issue. You need to get away. But how far is safe? From Neil Strauss' book Emergency, he recommends 'The Rule of Thumb'.

'The Rule of Thumb': If you can put your arm out with your thumb up, and squint, if your thumb is covering the area of effect, you're out of the threat zone. That could be quite some distance, depending how close you are to the area of effect.

So, that's a good bit of information.

But the next question is, what's a good distance from a city or even a rural town?

Let's say TSHTF and there's riots in the street and it's not a good place to be. How far away would you be happy to evacuate to? Would your home be safe? Would your distance from town or shops make you a target?

So, when bugging out, how far do you think would be a good idea to get?

[Geordie_Rob]

If it was chemical, out of the immediate area & hope for the best. Constantly looking for signs of trouble nearby & ready to run again if needed.

For rioting, again get away from the trouble or go against all natural instincts & head for the police lines for help. Even if they cuff you & cart you off to the nick, you're out of immediate harms way.

For defending my home, although it'll be devastating to see all I've worked for destroyed/stolen, it's only possessions & can be replaced by contents insurance. If people put more value on bricks & motar than flesh & blood of a family member, they really need to re-assess what's important in life mate.

Just my 2 penny's worth

[bigpaul]

I wouldn't want to rely on the Police or any other PTB, once we put our safety into the hands of someone else we cease to be preppers, we are all just numbers to them, heads to count! if its a chemical spill just getting out of the immediate area would possibly suffice, rioting, looting and societal collapse head for our BOL and never look back!

[uks]

We planned for this we have bol on the 4 points of the compass N,E,S & W.

[TOF]

If I'm at home when any of these scenarios occur, my plan is to stay put. Chemical spill, safer indoors than risk possible exposure. Rioting, doubtful I'd be affected, I'm too far out of town.
If I'm out and about, stuff in my handbag will pretty much see me home if necessary. It would have to be something pretty major to make me leave my humble abode, only then would I go onward to a safer place.

[Highlander]

(15 December 2013, 10:20)Scythe13 Wrote: 'The Rule of Thumb': If you can put your arm out with your thumb up, and squint, if your thumb is covering the area of effect, you're out of the threat zone. That could be quite some distance, depending how close you are to the area of effect.

...I have read this several times,..and for the life of me, I cant understand that

...anyway, your example was chemical,..please dont just run, not even from the direction the foaming mouthed people are coming from,.. wind can change or you might be in an eddy,.. first work out which direction the wind is blowing and move against it..... you can use your thumb for that...

How far,.. well it doesn't have to be very far at all, depending on the wind strength, and providing you have moved against the wind,...then the wind has helped to move the threat away from you,.. the foaming mouthed people are of no threat in that regards

Riots,... these are noisy affairs, they tell you to move to a distance where you can no longer hear the riot,.. that is usually considered a safe enough distance

[Scythe13]

(15 December 2013, 13:58)Highlander Wrote:

(15 December 2013, 10:20)Scythe13 Wrote: 'The Rule of Thumb': If you can put your arm out with your thumb up, and squint, if your thumb is covering the area of effect, you're out of the threat zone. That could be quite some distance, depending how close you are to the area of effect.

...I have read this several times,..and for the life of me, I cant understand that

It's basically a rule to make sure you're a safe distance from a biological or chemical attack. If you're near the area of effect, it could be quite a distance to move until you're out of the way. If it's pretty localised and you're not too near to it, you can easily enough just turn tail and get moving away from it.

Imagine a city that's been hit with a bio agent. To get away from it, the way to check you're a safe distance, turn back, put your thumb up, squint and if you can't see the city, because your thumb is blocking it, then you're a safe distance. Even if the wind is blowing towards you, the distance you'd have to be away so that your thumb covers the area of effect, e.g. the city in this example.

I hope that helps explain it?

[Highlander]

(15 December 2013, 14:14)Scythe13 Wrote:

(15 December 2013, 13:58)Highlander Wrote:

(15 December 2013, 10:20)Scythe13 Wrote: 'The Rule of Thumb': If you can put your arm out with your thumb up, and squint, if your thumb is covering the area of effect, you're out of the threat zone. That could be quite some distance, depending how close you are to the area of effect.

...I have read this several times,..and for the life of me, I cant understand that

It's basically a rule to make sure you're a safe distance from a biological or chemical attack. If you're near the area of effect, it could be quite a distance to move until you're out of the way. If it's pretty localised and you're not too near to it, you can easily enough just turn tail and get moving away from it.

Imagine a city that's been hit with a bio agent. To get away from it, the way to check you're a safe distance, turn back, put your thumb up, squint and if you can't see the city, because your thumb is blocking it, then you're a safe distance. Even if the wind is blowing towards you, the distance you'd have to be away so that your thumb covers the area of effect, e.g. the city in this example.

I hope that helps explain it?

Unless you are down wind of course,... then your thumb just told a porkie,.... it seems to me to be a dangerous rule

[NorthernRaider]

Air temp, ground temp, wind direction, barometric pressure, ground geography, forested or unforested, build up or rural all affect stuff as varied as nuke blast, fallout paterns or chemical dispersant patterns. nearly all accepted versions of safe estimated areas went out the window after the Mt St Helens blast cos the mud flows, ash clouds and pyroclastic flows all went different directions. And that Japanese husband and wife team of vulcanologists got wiped out in asia when they thought they had reached the generally accepted rule of thumb safe distance. The topgraphy actually increased the range of the pyroclastic gas blast and the scientists all died. On RT yesterday they reported on the effects of the French nukes in French polynesia in 1974 every one of their forcast dispersal patterns turned out to be horrible wrong because there are just to many chaotic principles that can alter events.
so estimating safe areas for natural events is difficult.
So then we move onto man made issues like terror attacks or warfare.

The Germans used to bomb London, so many civvies fled, The IRA and Al Quaeda learned from this and planted small diversionary devices in one place, detonated them thus causing the people to flee to another area, but THAT is where the terrs actually planted their big bombs thus increasing the amount of casualties.

The yanks drove the Iraqis back into Iraq from Kuwait and used bombing runs and missile attacks to push the Iraqi forces nearly all onto one particular highway, thats where the Americans waited with their A10 Warthogs and totally exterminated thousands of Iraqis troops and vehicles.

In London some experts clame the 7/7 tube / bus attack was coordinated that way, IE set off the bombs on the tubes and drive the commuters up to the surface and onto the buses where more bombers waited.

In Japan the terror group whose name I forget did some attacks that caused a change in commuter travel patterns and then launched the Sarin attack on their underground system.

In todays world "Safe distance" often now means out of the fireplace and into the fire.

In Britains enhanced, diverse, inclusive, multi cultural socialist paradise of 2013 I dont know if we can afford the luxury of safe distance any more. Anyway as we have so often discussed until we end up offending each other its not really applicable to rural preppers any more who have learned to avoid cities, and the urban preppers who stay put regardless of the evidence.

[bigpaul]

i guess the answer would be" as far as you can get". i know that in WW2 people from Plymouth used to walk out onto the moors every evening to get away from the bombing, sleep on the moors and come back in the morning.