Between 1:00 pm and 2:30 pm, several dirty bombs are detonated in cities across the United States. Initially, these cities are reported to be New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington DC, Chicago……and Charleston, SC. Other information coming in is sketchy and other cities and attack-type may be involved.
There is mass panic as the news spreads quickly across radio, TV, and social media. Cell reliability is sketchy in many areas as circuits get overwhelmed. Reports of all kinds come out stating these attacks were conducted by Muslims or by Right Wing radicals although the truth really doesn’t matter at this point. News coverage portrays mass casualties with hundreds of thousands injured and dead. Widespread panic continued. Airports are closed and security is boosted at all major public facilities. AMTRACK is shut down.
Highways and most major roadways fill between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm as people head home from work. Highways decrease in traffic after 10:00 pm Friday night and remain passable with some stoppages through Saturday 10:00 am – and then get backed up again.
Grocery stores and gun shops are absolutely overwhelmed and by 8:00 pm most shelves are completely empty.
Electricity remains on in our immediate area although news reports state blackouts are scattered all over the country.
By Saturday there are reports of looting and some violence carried out by groups – mostly in inner cities and “bad” sections of cities/towns. Many businesses fail to open or close early on Saturday due to people calling in.
The DOW drops several thousand points before trading is shut down for the weekend. ATM’s are cleared of cash.
That’s what we know – the rest are educated guesses and assumptions.
How people react to this scenario will be dependent on proximity to dirty bombs, population density, area criminal activity, and level of readiness among other things.
You cannot read into the situation that which isn’t there. This is in fact what has occurred. The specifics other than what information has been provided is unknown and can certainly be up to you to interpret. Remember that other areas and cities may have been hit.
Consider your current state of readiness…right now. Not what you plan to do but right this minute. Given the knowledge of your area and your own preparedness plans – how would you react?
3….2….1…..Go!!
Rourke
I’m gone as soon as I hear it. Gas, store, bank .. home. Pick up and fill cans if available .. diesel, gas, and water cans .. Calling and texting family if it’s available. Tell them code and get home now.. no questions. If we have no power then it’s just home and call and text .. back roads… feed store .. no interstate or major roads, unless I have to. Note to telegram group. Call to BOL’s.. talk about alt plans/comms .. Home.. Unload truck… … drop tree across driveway once everyone is there.
Call in and file time off plans.. in case it’s temp.
Execute financial plan..
Distribute “things” to their places. Inventory. Monitor comms, news, internet, etc etc..
Live my life and catch up on maintenance work. Wait.
GG58
Here at the farm:
We fix supper as usual.
Everybody gets a shower and a hug. Some get kisses. And we get a good night’s sleep. As usual.
Next morning after breakfast and tending the animals, the dogs walk us over to the row of mailboxes to catch-up with the neighborhood. As usual. One of the mules might join us, you never can tell about mules. If one decides to come, they all have to trudge along. Mules.
Rocking in the swing waiting for everybody to mosey over to open their mailbox (there usually isn’t any mail, and that’s OK), looking at the sky and checking the horizon, our conversation might go along the lines of:
“Did you hear something about something going on with city-folk?”
“More of the same?”
“Yep.”
“Figures. Well, looks like another nice day.”
“Yep.”
“So. See you tomorrow.”
“I imagine so. Rex, Lacey, let’s head home. Rex, quit rolling in that!”
Gramma – much the same reaction I had. I’m not rural; but, the areas hit were not here where I live. Because I do have customers who live out-of-state that I service locally, I’d check to see if any of them were on my schedule. Possibly I’d try to make contact. Other than that, life would go on as more or less normal and other than watching the news unfold, I’d just keep on doing as I do.
After the first alert i text my wife the (Go Code)
I live and work in DFW metroplex. I drive home to Bedford from Southlake, distance 6.2 miles.
Load up an share intel, punch up weather patern map if possible and try to establish “radioactive fall out” estimates.
Wife will send text code to friends at BOL
if unable to make contact, will asuume they are following the EAP (Emergency Action Plan) we created.
BOL is 1 hr drive when its a good day
We contingencies to handle situationd as they come up.
Get out of the Metroplex ASAP
Most likely, no change at all. The winds from the southwest may impact us depending on the time of the year. Atlanta is 130 miles away. I would ratchet up the security level of the homestead, alert the family living near Charlotte and the rest about 20 miles south. All our kids are in the medical field and will most likely be required services. Since I don’t see an immediate threat from radioactivity, the bigger threat would be the hordes in panic mode. Keep the gates locked and hopefully the sheeple running like chickens with their heads cut off will run right past us. Otherwise, same old, same old.
I work on the north side of DFW (Grapevine), and live in what some might referr to as a northern exburb of DFW…far enough out that there is considerable livestock and cropland around me. When the stinky stuff hits the ventilator, I’m gone. Get home bag in my vehicle with 9mm thug deterrent by my driver’s seat. Get home ASAP, vehicles into garage or backyard, load lots of magazines in various calibers, get my wife to fill WaterBob in the tub, set up Big Berkey and start filtering water for every container in the house, get out rolls of sheet plastic and duct tape to seal house from fallout if necessary. Turn on the news, and be ready to respond accordingly. Shelf stable foods, toiletries, OTC meds, cleaning supplies, etc. already set back. Oh yeah…and ammo.
There are too many variables for me. Was our nearest city attacked? Do we have power? If I’m still at work (quit at 3) when the news hits my young co-workers’ Facebook pages, then I’d hit the nearest ATM, fill up the gas tank, and buy and fill as many gas cans as possible before heading home. I’d call my mother before leaving and tell her to get to the bank by her house and withdraw as much cash as she can. Call the absent daughter in the city to see what conditions are like there. If she answers and isn’t in immediate danger, she’ll head to the BOL. If there’s a good chance of fallout where we are, we’d hunker down for a couple weeks. If not, I’d let the boss know I’m taking my vacation right now and have my mother pack her car and get to my house. We’re not in a metro area or near any of the cities on Rourke’s list, but the county seat is right next door. Once those residents realize that the stores aren’t being replenished, they’re going to riot and spread out. During the time my mother’s packing her car, we’ll be doing the same at our house. Once she arrives, the son will take over driving her car as we travel on back roads to get to a seldom-used highway. It’s one of those that was built in the middle of farmland “to bring in business and improve the economy”, and 40 years later it’s still just a really wide road running through the middle of farmland. There’s only a half-mile stretch where we might run into traffic jams, so it’s worth the risk. If we don’t have power, all of that would be delayed by several days. On Day 2, I’d have to track down the local VFD or police department to see what they could tell me. If they provide the information in Rourke’s post, then I’d have to circle from there to the boss’ house to my mother’s to help her pack and then back home. The boss and her immediate family are the kind you want with you, so in addition to telling her that I’m skipping town, I’d give her detailed directions on how to get there.
I contact my doctor to perform my gender reassignment surgery, then I go home to heal. After that I begin selling all of my firearms, ammo, and my food storage. I then use my newly acquired parts in bartering to make my way in the world… Yeah not. I finish out my day at work, and arrive home at t the same time as my kids. We sit down together as a family and evaluate the situation. We monitor HAM Frequencies to gather info. My wife and I decide upon the best course of action for our family based upon our preparations and plans, then put them into action.
Well, you could always duck and cover.
Seriously if you don’t know the Rule of 7s, you should complete the FEMA self study class in Radiological Management. A NIMS certification is also useful if only for learning a methodology to manage complex situations. See:https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-3
The Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) offers excellent instruction on a variety of topics. See: https://www.chds.us/c/academic-programs
PH
Thanks Panhandle Rancher. If you still have my e mail inf. could you please contact me-or ask Rourke. Lightning
Good advise!! If you understand what your facing and how it might or might not at all affect you is a good place to start. Otherwise, you will just be part of the mass panic, because you will be flight mode!!
The enemy will be the media not the bombs.
It is they that will cause nearly all of the panic with the government sweeping up the cooler minds using Ronald Reagan’s
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Dirt bombs have limited use. The contamination will be contained to the blast area! The blast will kill more then contamination or exposure. The responses above are exactly what the terrorist want!! Understand the threats before hand will help plan accordingly.
I’m not running from the bombs or any radiation within the nearest major city limits. I’m leaving because the supplies for our area, including what keeps me employed, come primarily through 3 of the cities on Rourke’s list. If I try cooking after the first 2 days, I’m going to wind up with a couple hundred people on my doorstep, because they’re out of food, can’t buy more, and smelled my dinner. If the nearest city is one of those attacked, there goes our power supply. The nearest creek is a couple miles away, up and down a steep hill and only accessible through several front yards. If we have any situation that can’t be resolved within 4 days, we have no choice but to leave, because we lack too many resources here. Our BOL has its drawbacks, but a lack of water, firewood, and farmland aren’t among them.
1. Family alert goes to condition RED.
2. Vehicles topped off.
3. Family blanket text msg to report in
4. Filling extra water jugs, final preps in the event bug out is best
5. Comms up – ham, short wave, CB, police / fire scanner
6. OODA
I have been prepping for 12 years. Probably as ready as I will ever be. I would try to top off fuel, water, and whatever else I could. I expect a interruption in services and goods early on. Then the golden hoard starts to move. Hunker down. Lock and Load.
Single Mom, If you’re worried about the smell of food propagating and drawing pests, perhaps you live too close to our fellow apex predators. I’ve long advocated the life outside city limits. If you’re just stuck, you might want to lay in some freeze dried meals that need only heat and water. The smells from many of those just don’t propagate like cooking from fresh. Many of the meals from Bear Creek are as good as freeze dried gets and we use Valley Foods freeze dried food in our BOBs. PR
I do have some of those, PR, but not enough for long term. Yes, we’re in a bad place right now. Several of my immediate neighbors are okay, but the majority here are low-income renters. We’ve seen a surge in vandalism and break-ins over the last couple years, hoodlum teenagers, drug use, and hit-and-runs. We’ve been talking about moving to our BOL, but financially, that won’t be possible for a couple more years yet. On a good note, we’re 30 miles from the nearest city of any real size, so if we do have to leave in a hurry we should be able to avoid mobbed highways.
If you think when this went down that you will have time to go to ATM, Store, Gas Station and leave work… You will find out how wrong you are. Water, Food and $$ should already be at your BOL.
I’ve finally been able to buy my dream house! My ultimate BOL remains the same, but now we have a fighting chance of staying put. My new place comes with several acres, multiple sturdy buildings, woods, open fields, at least 2 water sources, and a lovely little cast-iron cookstove. I’ve also inherited a year’s supply of seasoned firewood and several water barrels. The close relatives are finally getting on board, and all have agreed that I’ll be home base if something happens. It’s too late in the year now, but we’re making plans for a small communal garden next Spring and possibly some chickens.