Survival Retreat vs. Neighborhood Survival


February 11, 2009
By Dr. Richard

Earlier this month, I posted Etienne's guest post Seeking/Starting a Survival Retreat in Virginia / Maryland / Pennsylvania / West Virginia. Today, I had lunch with Etienne de la Boetie and another prepper here in Loudoun County. We had a long discussion about survival retreats vs neighborhood survival. Etienne is a big fan of the survival retreat concept. He previously had a retreat where he did not own the land but where he was able to store a travel trailer recreational vehicle in which he pre-positioned various preps and supplies. Unfortunately, his friend moved and sold the property. There are four major flaws in the survival retreat separate from your home concept:

1. There are significant liabilities and social problems with communal retreats where one does not own the property - you are vulnerable to the actions of the others, particularly the property owner.

2. Property left at unattended retreats is vulnerable to theft and vandalism. This is going to be a growing problem as the economic depression gets worse, especially if we have economic collapse.

3. Getting to the retreat would be problematic in the event that it is actually needed - particularly in martial law scenarios where the military and law enforecement block traffic at key intersections or in cases where there are fuel shortages.

4. Relatively undeveloped retreats with a trailer and undeveloped land may not be sufficiently developed for long-term survival and offer insufficient space for storage of the various preps and other items you need. Many of these items would likely be at your day-to-day residence and you cannot assume that you can transport everything at the last minute.

My view is that survival retreats only work if you live there full-time. Furthermore, although remote locations are further removed from the masses, they are also further removed from jobs, markets, customers, hospitals, and many other useful infrastructure and will be harder pressed to gather a sufficiently large group to cover all of the tasks needed in a true long-term survival scenario. Even the best special forces operator cannot defend his property 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Unfortunately, we are rapidly running out of time and it is probably already too late to relocate - especially if relocating means trying to sell your existing home in this real estate environment -- in my neighborhood we haven't had a sale in over eight months and anyone who bought in the last four years AND did the traditional 20% down payment fixed 30 year mortgage now has negative equity.

I am a big proponent of the concept that your family, friends, neighbors, and church are your survival group. Yes, I understand that many are unprepared and clueless about both the threats and what they need to do to prepare for them. However, your home is your survival retreat. Strengthen it to the extent you can, but your odds improve exponentially if you can organize your neighborhood and help everyone survive against the threat(s) you are facing in your survival situation. You and those in the group who are better prepared or who have the right skills are the cadre needed to get organized and do what is needed. The rest of the neighborhood are your foot soldiers and do'ers. My philosophy is to lead and organize but that charity starts with those who are willing to help themselves and help the group in the survival situation. In a survival situation, your first challenges are to assess the hazards/priorities/immediate needs, organize the group, secure the neighborhood, and scrounge/barter/trade for needed resources.

Be a leader. There are many things you can do to help develop your neighborhood group of family, friends, neighbors, and fellow church members and increase the odds of the neighborhood surviving:

* Get to know them.
* Have potluck dinners.
* Help them wake up and prepare.
* Start a garden club to help start victory gardens.
* Start a community watch program for your neighborhood.
* Give them a copy of Chris Martenson's Crash Course on the economy DVD. I bought a case of 30 and gave them as 2008 Christmas gifts.
* Give copies of Holly Deyo's book Dare to Prepare as gifts. I bought a case of 8 (saved 40%) and gave them as 2008 Christmas gifts to family and several neighbors who got it and were starting to prep.
* Store extra preps for charity and be prepared to give when it is needed for survival.
* Learn about their skills, backgrounds, and interests - on my street we have a former Navy Corpsman/LEO/M16 Instructor/master scrounger/contractor/award winning BBQ chef who gets it and is starting to prepare, 2 nurses, a master gardener, an agricultural engineer / head of the 800 home neighborhood HOA, a Mormon family that does food storage, and six members of the neighborhood garden club run by our master gardener.
* Buy tools that would be useful that could be shared like tillers.
* Buy extra seed such as a 7 year supply of Survival Seeds and be prepared to provide seeds for neighbors
* Build a survival library of books and skills that you can use to train them when they need survival skills.
* Buy several extra surplus rifles such as the Russian Mosin Nagant or SKS rifles and stock extra ammunition to equip your "community watch" patrols.
* Invite them to go to a shooting range with you.
* Be prepared to give honest evaluations of whether individuals should relocate once a survival situation begins to relative's homes or even public shelters if that is the best option for them.


You will be pleasantly surprised how many of your family, friends, neighbors, and fellow church members that are starting to wake up and realize the reality and danger of our current position. This number is increasing every week. Don't simply assume that they are all clueless sheep - many simply need some education and a leader to show them the way.

http://virginiapreppersnetwork.blogspot.com/2009/02/survival-retreat-vs-neighborhood.html

sounds good on paper but going outside your own family is asking for trouble..even church people you have known for years may start looking at you funny..unless of course you are mormon then its normal for them...and i know for a fact if the word gets out before that your prepared then the whole town will come beating on your door once things get bad..

When the whole town comes beating on your door you sign them all up for the militia.

There is a big difference between being covert or being in the open, if you are staying in your neighborhood and defending it people will obviously know.

Another thing to keep in mind is the need to know basis, if you have a militia formed ad-hoc they would only be capable of very simple tasks and for their own safety and yours they need to know very little.

I agree, I'd rather defend my neighborhood than some far away shack in the mountains. On that note, a road block probably isn't a bad idea. Used 18-wheeler tires are good for that purpose because they are easy to maneuver into position (they roll), you can fill them with dirt, sand, gravel, or concrete to make them more permanent, rifle round bounce off them, and they are FREE from your local tire dealer.

Survival retreat my ass.

My aim is not to survive as if I had any say in the matter and not to retreat.

If I rest it will be in the chambers of some elite who is no longer in need of the property.

The neighborhood concept shouldn't be blown off. Actually, it is one of the very few viable solutions.

Look at many of the teams out there now. Many of the team members are an hour or more drive away from each other. If any event or crisis were to occur; they would be screwed before help could arrive.

With a properly prepared neighborhood, where everyone is interconnected with an off grid comm. system it would be difficult for any of them to be caught off guard. Within the neighborhood everyone watches each others back and is ready to respond at a minutes warning. If Joe Patriot's house is surrounded; it will only take a matter of minutes for the attackers to be surrounded and taken out themselves.

These same neighborhoods can not only supply their own needs but provide supply and logistical support for others who are resisting.

Hmm, would the beast take a proactive approach toward thwarting any efforts by 'civilians' to form such survival towns? They will and have in the past although a mass movement by thousands would take the intervention of those Army combat brigades.

If you can find such townsfolk, awesome. Just think however about your day to day existence; how will you pay the bills? Are you able to integrate yourself into THEIR community? Do you know anyone who can smooth your entry? If you can't, then you're in for hell. Outsiders moving in and can't keep their stuff secure because they get vandalized or can't keep a job because, well, their bosses decided they weren't 'performing' have to move... what if they don't have the money?

They have to sell... nobody's buying their stuff-have to have a garage sale to scrap together funds. All the vultures come out and you lose most everything. You're lucky to get a ride from Craigslist and you have to start all over again, in a depression facing a communist regime.

A nightmare scenario but not implausable by any means! Know who you're neighbors are going to be.

The neighborhood concept is already in place in several areas.

For example:

Joe Patriot lives in a mostly self sufficient rural community. Over the years he has learned just who his neighbors really are. He has been networking with them for several years...working on emergency preparedness and self sufficiency...setting up an off the grid communications system and engaging in some hard core target practice. All of these folks live within close proximity of each other.

This small group of neighbors watch each others back. They even have a unofficial neighborhood watch set up in the area.

Everyone has agreed upon certain commitments to each other or the group as a whole.

Over time they've reached out to others within the neighborhood and to some from other areas. As land or housing comes up for sale, the neighborhood notifies these outsiders and more trickle into the area.

The process continually expands...