Here’s a controversial topic for preppers: If you’re trying to survive a disaster in an urban area, should you take things you need from abandoned cars, homes, and buildings? For me, it depends on the situation. If my child has a deadly infection and I need life-saving antibiotics right away, I think it would be okay to break into an abandoned pharmacy and search for medication. That seems pretty black and white.
Most scenarios, however, are gray areas. If a grocery store has already been looted, what harm is there in searching for items the looters missed? If a vehicle appears to be abandoned, what harm is there in siphoning gasoline from it? Especially if you’re out of gas and in a dangerous area?
Then again, taking things from a grocery store is still stealing. And even if you’re absolutely convinced the owner of a vehicle will never return, you might be wrong. That’s what makes these questions so difficult. I’m not here to answer them for you, but I think they’re worth considering.
If you’re preparing for an apocalyptic disaster, the kind of scenario where entire cities are mostly abandoned, I think it’s a good idea to take what you need. In that case, scavenging might be the only thing that keeps you alive. But if you’re going to scavenge, you’ll need certain tools.
In this video, The Survival Outpost describes what he calls a “vulture toolkit.” Inside it, he has items he might need to scavenge for supplies–things like bolt cutters, wire cutters, hacksaw, lock pick set, gas siphon pump, trash bags (for collecting items), and more.
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You can learn more in his blog post, or you can watch the video below:
Way to much stuff that will be useless or not necessary. Some of that stuff should be on your person as EDC stuff. Some of it should be eliminated altogether.
You need to prioritize your missions: to get water, or to get food, or to get gas. Not just a random searches. That is a good way to fail.
You should mark on the map if you locate something not on today’s mission, to search it out on another day or another trip.
Next is in gathering water. if you are “lost in the woods’ you need a gallon of water a day to drink, if you are trying to live day to day SHTF, you need 10 to 13 gallons a day for all your water needs(as determined by refugee camp studies). The little water bag won’t cut it. The canteen should be on a belt, on your person, not in your bag. You need a multi gallon container for carrying water.
The idea of a sillcock tool for getting water, if there is no power is crazy. Ever tried draining your pipes at home? Unless you open an internal faucet, you don’t get much water out of the system. Eventually the vacuum created, locks the water up in the pipes. While you are doing this you will get noticed. The idea is to be quickly, in and out.
Now to the “fuel’ container. If you need fuel,( and if you prepped properly, you should not), you will probably need a lot of it, so this is a joke.
As far as the framing Tomahawk, there are better lighter versions available. But as an entry tool, lock picking should be the preferred way to go. If you break in and find more resources than you can carry in 1 trip, now they will probably be lost to you. If you had not broken in, you could re-lock it and return later for the rest. Even bringing your own padlock( with keys) to replace the one you broke, would be a good addition to a kit like this.
In urban SHTF, the hills will have eyes. So will every building, field, etc. Some one, some where, WILL be watching you. Either to steal your new-found resources, or to follow up and see what you left behind,(depending upon if they are a wolf, ( predator type) or a sheep, (non confrontational type.).
We need a SHTF mentality, based upon that reality, not based in what we see today as options or ways of doing things. Many of these ideas come from camping, urban homelessness and other “current” modes of existence that will have little or no value, post SHTF.
I think personally I would add a Gerber multi tool to the kit , as this gives you a blade, saw, screwdrivers, pliers, wire cutter all in one compact unit. Other wise, fairly well thought out but a tad bulky.
A small multitool might be good for smallish jobs but when you need to get through industrial sized areas, you need industrial tools capable of handling the job. It is about procuring items from hard to get into areas, not about bulk or weight.