James,
I finally have my bugout location found and purchased. Plan to start building a small home there later this year. Cabin first, house will wait till I see how the economy runs. On the east coast, as I have family here and really don’t want to leave this area. I am outside a small town, on a dirt road off a local rural highway. I have near nine acres of woods and one acre of pasture (garden and orchard) space. One acre of the land is separated from the rest by a four foot wide surface creek. It has a nice cleared area I plan to develop into a picnic area at the creek. The majority of the land is heavily wooded.
I am considering offering the space as an overnight primitive camping stop for bugout travelers. One night to one week maximum. You know, rest up and recoup or reunite with stragglers while en route. Good idea or no?
How should I let fellow survivalists know about the location? I would have to meet traveler in some nearby town to get to know before showing them the location, for personal security.
Or should I hole up on my land and let everyone else fend for themselves? Your thoughts are appreciated, either as an e-mail or a post on your blog. Thanks, – S. in Alabama
JWR Replies: I can foresee a few potential problems with your plan:
First: Vetting someone for suitability and trustworthiness for such an arrangement is time consuming. Unless you could properly vet someone before they were told the exact location of your retreat, then it would be a huge OPSEC risk. Worst case: Your retreat ends up on some outlaw motorcycle gang’s “shopping list.”
Second: If anyone asks if they can cache supplies at your retreat, there could be legal implications, especially if they are less than honest about what they are burying on your property. (I’ve heard a couple of horror stories from consulting clients about the antics of some their erstwhile “friends” that turned out to be flakes or criminals.)
Third: In times of Deep Drama, it might be difficult to persuade “stay-overs” to abide by their contractual obligation to move on. (I can just hear the whining: “But I’m sick with the flu”. or, “But my wife has a badly sprained ankle and can’t walk…”, or, “I’m not leaving until my brother arrives. We’re supposed to meet-up here.”)
Fourth: “Signing-up” a large number of stay-overs is an egregious violation of the “need to know” rule. Each person that is told about the retreat location represents one more person that could get careless and blather or boast of it to friends. Repeat that risk 20 or 30 rimes, and sure enough, on TEOTWAWKI+ 1 or TEOTWAWKI+2 you’ll wake up in the morning to find that a hundred tents have sprouted in your pasture, most of which will be occupied by newcomers that you know nothing about. (This factor, BTW, is why The Memsahib and I have taken some extreme measures in guarding the location of our year-round retreat.)
In summation, I think that such an arrangement is more trouble than it is worth. To do it right would requite plenty of vetting. And if you are going to that much trouble, then it might as well be to approve someone that will be a full-fledged member of your retreat group.