Treesuit wrote: " ... a discussion on BOB’s or Bug out Bags. ...
I live near Seattle, Washington and I’m in an urban rural setting. I have two major interstate federal highways near my house; I have a large army ALICE rucksack that is modified to handle a bigger load (4000 cubic inches or about 40 liters). I have enough field stripped MRE’s to last 72 hours, and I’ve included simple first aid supplies, cold weather clothing, modular sleeping bag, simple items and sundries for comfort and a rifle with limited amount of ammo. I do have a few Bug out locations marked out but my problem is that if something bad happened (i.e. earthquake, volcano eruption, or mass pandemic) both major highways would become choked with traffic and impassable. Not to mention county and state roads would become pretty bad with people trying to get away from the disaster. So the idea of maybe staying put and “bugging in” becomes a reality.
...
So with that what would you propose?
[honestly I haven't waded through ll 17 preceeding pages of posts]
From the opening post and gear list I saw no mention of a WATER FILTER (or two, with chemical tabs as #3) - lots of water around western WA, the Olympics and Cascades but also a need for purification, but the weather often makes fire-starting and water-boiling problematic so a filter is the way to go.
Also I'd say WORK GLOVES, and some precautions for bio-hazard (flu outbreak/anthrax attack) - a dozen pair of exam gloves (weights virtually nothing) and several N-95 masks plus water/spit tight eye-protection (swim goggles?) (provides support in event of volcanic ash too)
It would be easy to get stuck on the road away from home because of Ring of Fire type activity leading to a tsunami nailing a section of the Sound - and look what happened when that I-5 Skagit river bridge just up and collapsed a couple of years ago, and the horrible mudslide near Oso last year, think of a dozen of those things happening simultaneously ... and then there's the dozing-but-still-active volcanoes in the Cascades ...
I grew up in Southern CA and lived through several home-wrecking quakes, spent some time in OK and got to know tornadoes up (too) close, and then my job took me to Puyallup WA, in Pierce county south of Seattle, east of Tacoma, back close to Fort Lewis ... moving to Puyallup the situation with Mt. Rainier was on my mind - the potential for quakes, volcanic eruption likely leading to an immense mud-flow ("lahar") ... we settled on a house on South Hill, essentially a plateau above the possible lahar path, a good 300 feet above the river valley floor. The natural disaster I actually got was the Hanukkah Eve windstorm, a 100-year pacific front/wind event that knocked out power across the whole of the western side of the state - while temps were down near freezing - our neighborhood was dark for 3 days, but our gas fireplace kept us warmer than most and we ended up inviting folks in for a spell, but a friend with a ranch property 20 miles out in the country had no power, and no well-water for over 2 weeks !
I try to keep a general purpose loadout. Unless I am going camping or some other planned trip. Then I will make adjustments. Weathering permitting, I will take some pictures of what I have packed. Until then, here is a picture of the bag.