I know that I typically reserve my
Tuesdays for my Fortress of Solitude entries but this week is going to be just
a little something different. It is an FoS entry, just tweaked. Before Brian
Anderson left the group (Godspeed, Brian & Kelly), he gave me the full
notebook that he had been scribbling in for the past couple weeks. As it turns
out, Brian was working on a “bug out” plan.
Don’t get me wrong. We feel pretty
safe in here; maybe not safe but safer. I think that we can withstand any horde
and our food and water situation is pretty darn solid. I would not want to try
to venture out into the great wide world. But the simple logic states that
eventually, we will have to. Something could go wrong – something that we have
not anticipated – and we may have to leave.
Brian anticipated this event more than
most and before leaving, he left we a full plan and some fairly extensive
diagrams on how to retrofit the buses we acquired from Adair Schools to
transform them into “bug out” vehicles.
The idea is pretty genius. He has
marked out how to build bunks, storage, basically turning them into rolling
fortresses. I think they are big enough that we could slowly work our way
through a horde (if necessary) and he has redundancy plans laid out so that we
don’t all cram into one bus and become stranded when we break down.
Instead, we have three of everything.
Two buses would be filled with water, food, bunks, weapons, and ammunition. The
third would carry less equipment but would essentially be a roll fuel depot. We
would carry fuel for the convoy in one bus using sealed 55-gallon drum
containers. That bus would also be fitted with our siphoning gear so we can
raid any gas stations, truck stops or car dealerships that we come across.
It would be a fairly big undertaking
for the group to do this. However, with the parking lot being effectively
barricaded, weapons in case something goes really wrong, lookouts, escape
hatches, rope ladders to the roof… I think it is safe to say that we can start
the retrofit out in the parking lot with a modicum of safety.
Yes, we barricaded the doors with cars
and our overstock supplies but these can be moved. In theory, if a horde were
to roll through, they could be spotted and our group fixing up the buses could
retreat long before that perimeter wall is breeched.
It feels like a solid plan and
everyone is on board. (I will explain more of the psyche stuff later as I find
it interesting.) For now, we have a new goal and a new purpose. We are still
sticking with the Year One plan but we know we are going to have to leave
eventually. We are just trying to stay ahead of the curve.
