How would you fight your way back home?

what i did when i was you and desperate to walk 38miles home after a minimum wage job. walk backwards, thumb out, and smile. no sunglasses or hat. dont stop and you'll get there. more often than not women would give me a ride as i looked commited, transparent, and not a threat.

 

If history is anything to go off of, nobody is going to mess with you regardless. Why would they? There's literally free crap for the taking everywhere in the rubble. They'll be too busy looting to bother you. Kinda like what happened in the Loma Prieta quake (which I'm assuming the anniversary of triggered this post). So just walk. Help out along the way if you want or can, ask people you pass if they're ok, and just keep moving.

 

Reminds me of the movie: The Warriors. Warriors....Come out to playyay... Warriors, Come Out to Play - The Warriors (7/8) Movie CLIP (1979) HD - YouTube

 

A pool float, offline maps to get to the nearest river, and bottle of my fav whiskey. I've been praying for this day to come. Vacation is necessary.

 

I work for a large outdoor retailer and I will say it's SHOCKING how many folks are preparing for some sort of global event! We would joke about the occasional 'prepper' who comes in looking for survival gear, but now it's literally a weekly thing to talk to somebody who is completely open about moving into the woods with a group of like-minded people. These stories usually accompany various conspiracy theories and politics.

What worries me more than an actual emergency is large groups of people on edge hiding out in the woods where I like to camp!

 

Piece of Cake. I am a cyclist too. 15-18 mph.. Ill be home in 3 hours (assuming an hour away means 45-50 miles.) If I am on my ebike (and it is charged) that is about a hour and 20 (31mph)

 

I’d probably take a nap. It’s my talent.

 

Nothing wrong with prepping. Id say it beats spending 3 hours of your night watching network television. I find it fun to be honest. Want to know one of the scariest things out there if the "SHTF"? Your beloved pets, Dogs. wont take them long to turn on us when we stop feeding them and they get hungry. I read a book a few years ago.

Lights Out by David Crawford
Googled it.. there is the book.

The writing was EXTREMELY poor but the message was interesting. It was a HELL of a lot Darker than "The walking dead". I made it through scott free in Covid without getting covid and me my wife and three kids were totally prepared for that whole 2 years of a mess.

I still want to learn how to make metal and make a trench radio from nothing. Those are two skills I dont have. I dont consider that a waste to know those things even if I never need them. (which is probably the case)

 

Whats funnier is most of these groups coordinate everything they do in Facebook messenger groups, as if they think their master plans are secret from the political powers they're conspiring against.

Its actually kind of comical. A couple years ago, I was added to a random FB Messenger group, of about 2-300 people. I guess I share the same name as someone else they were looking to add, when they accidentally added me. I began receiving messages from the group, and after reading backwards a handful of messages, I put together it was a certain politically motivated group of individuals, preparing for governmental collapse, and were making plans for when/if it were to happen. Truly entertaining as people spouted off how their brother's ex-girfriend's cousin's step-nephew who was a high ranking military member, and provided some wild top secret intel, and they were actively planning around these things. Truly weird.

 

Finally gonna use all those skills learned playing GTA on PS2 all those years ago.

Wait for the tanks to roll, then jack one and drive it home.

 

Do you mean Korn?

 

Why must you get home?

Myself I would stay and help as much possible. No doubt hooking up with others of the same mind

Without knowing the city it would be a waste of time.

Given the city I know, I would know people I have worked with many across the country over the years .

Becoming Armed would never be a problem.

 

You should really read this. It's not very long, but it's interesting. There's a problem with your premise.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/03/...an-rain-mud.html?referringSource=articleShare
I teach high school English and we talk about this when we do Lord of the Flies.
Everyone has this fear that when the shit hits the fan everyone starts looting and pillaging. It just doesn't happen that way in real life.

 

Can't speak for OP, but for many, "home" is where your kids/wife/family/closest friends are. Whether that be your actual home, or making it to your hometown at least, most people are trying to get to the people they care the most about. And while having a plan for a "meeting place" outside of your home may be your plan, its more feasible for the adult/man to endure whatever lies between work and home, than it is for a child/women/elderly. (its 2023, I know.. women can be more capable than men at things - I'm making a generalized statement. Men want to be the ones in harm's way, not their families).

 

Valid Point but the time it took to travel home any trouble would be long over so it is a moot point.

Besides these days a very large salary would be needed to do more then pass through any city.

Besides if I am working the other has wife and child protection duty .

If I had any family we always used that system quite popular for many years.

 

I’ve given this some thought since I live in So Cal. I don’t live or work in a metropolitan city, so my outlook is little different. I live 6 miles from work, so a hike home isn’t a big deal. I also have some other responsibilities to consider. As a public employee and a teacher, I have an obligation to remain at work. The State of Californian designates me as a disaster worker and I have a responsibility to stay and help our students get somewhere safe, whether it’s home or a shelter. The school district has plans for this possibility and emergency food and water supplies on hand. I also have my own food/water/clothing/tools on hand because I don’t feel the district’s plans and supplies are sufficient. I might be here a few days before I can leave.

Once I can go, my first choice would be to drive. No parking structures here and assuming my taco didn’t become a parts car because of a fallen power pole, or parent/student activity. There are many service roads, utility corridors, washes, fields, and closer to home, horse trails, between work and home. I know where all of them are and have driven almost all of the ones which are not gated. In the truck, I carry bolt cutters, a tow strap, and various other items to get me home. I want to stay off the roads and out of sight as aside from the quake damage, there will likely be opportunists, scared people, and general scumbaggery which seems to happen when the veneer of civil society is stripped away.

I always carry a pack to work. If I have to walk home, I take my water, a small amount of food, and some basic tools (knife/silcock key/pick set/550 cord/et. al.) to allow me to move or shelter as needed. I keep extra clothes and shoes at work in case I get stuck there with everything being grey or black. Functional, does not attract attention, blends in for the area. I have all the potential routes mapped on printed maps with notations and the maps are laminated (easy to do when you work at a school). Once I head home, I’m going to try to do it as low-profile as possible and off the beaten path. I’d go at night if possible.

My kids are grown and on their own, my wife can walk home from work pretty quickly, so I have some latitude with how and when I get there. I’m not that worried about hazards generated by the earthquake. I worry about the people who will use the situation as cover or opportunity for their criminal BS, so I’ll do whatever is necessary to get home.

 

Well in OP's made up scenario, the context of "24 hrs to get home" implies the 'trouble' won't be resolved anytime within those 24 hours. More like, 24 hrs is the buffer window before all hell actually breaks loose. So in the context of OP's made up scenario, the time it takes to travel home being not worth it bc trouble would be over is a moot point.

Not sure what you're trying to say with your last statement. Maybe other, as in other family members? Other husband? Either way, couple or throuple, my priority is my immediate family, at home, whatever it takes. Sure, they can likely sustain themselves for a while, and I may be of no help at all. But I'm damn sure gonna at least try.

 

Time to hop into the ole Landmaster and motor...

 

I lived Lord of the Flies once. I chaperoned an 8th grade mountain camp trip. It was everything but the boar's head on a post. Frightening stuff, but I did survive.

I disagree in part with your disagreement regarding pillaging and looting. My cousin lived in New Orleans during Katrina. The looting, score settling, and general scumbaggery by both opportunistic citizens and government agencies at all levels was epic, but, so was the help people gave each other. Look at the Los Angeles Riots in 1992. While that was civil unrest and not a quake or flood, the perception of civil breakdown prompted some people to use it as an opportunity to again, settle scores, loot, and destroy in actions separate from Rodney King protests. Looting liquor stores, Targets, and Wallmarts isn't protest against police use of force, it's opportunism. Sublime wrote a song about it. Look at the Summer of Love nonsense where all of that nonsense led to murders, looting, and arson. Opportunism in the name of (insert latest nonsense here). Emergencies, and disasters bring out both the best and worst in people. Some, I think probably most, will help their fellow human beings and even reach across divides they might not have at one time. However, there are a salient number of persons who will use it for cover for things they might not otherwise do or would like to do and think this an opportunity to carry it out. People are people and there will always be saints and sociopaths among us. I tend to worry about the sociopaths.