Bugging Out?

You can't read around the web on prepping too long before you come across the topic of "bug out bags".  This is an interesting sub-genre in that it quickly reveals the extreme paranoia on many prepping sites.  Here's one from The Art of Manliness that is not too extreme.

So the idea is to have an easy to carry bag that will get you through the first 72 hours.  Note that his is LOADED with a ton of stuff... most telling is all the weapons (including a gun) - and a Bible.  (I'm sorry... in my head, those two DON'T mix.)

I can't imagine a less safe scenario than in the local woods after some sort of "event".   I live in northern Delaware - that part of Delaware that looks like it was cut out of PA.  If you look on Google Earth, there are woods in my area, but they're all surrounded by suburbia.

All these arm-chair survivalists taking to the local woods with their knifes and guns, exhausted from carrying a 50lb pack and ready to take on anyone they think might be after their food and fighting over sipping through their filter straws from the local streams... it ain't gonna end well.

I've also learned that there are different ways to think about emergency "get out of town" or "get out of Dodge" (GOOD) kits.

The first is the "bug out kit" described on the page above.  These seem to be survivalist fantasy items - more as something to chat about at parties than really useful.  It might be useful to have in your car in certain circumstances, but much too heavy to carry any distance.

A second - sometimes called a "bug out kit" is more of a survivalist kit.  It's much lighter... for that time when you turn your back on society and take to the hills, and it contains the basic tools you'd need to start a solitary life in the woods somewhere much more remote than my area.  To me, this might be a more reasonable scenario, but it's not for me.  Yes, I used to enjoy the occasional camping trip.  But I don't want to camp for the rest of my life.

A third type is an Evacuation Kit... more of a tote, actually.  The idea here is that you gather some copies of key documents (home insurance, DL, passport, etc.), a couple changes of clothing, perhaps a day or two's worth of food and water, some toiletries and a simple first aid kit, etc., and keep it in a tote in your car.  At a recent lunch with a former colleague, she told me that they keep something like this at the ready - in fact, she knew her husband was serious about her when he offered to add some of her things to his kit - how romantic!

I think I'm leaning towards this last type of kit.

Seriously, a house fire, a wildfire, or some sort of huge industrial accident are the only likely scenarios where I think I'd need to abandon the home.  I doubt it's even possible for us to get flooded (except perhaps a plumbing emergency).  We're most likely "bugging out" to a neighbor's house or the nearest hotel - perhaps one that's 10 miles away in an extreme case.