In this next section we will go over a get home scenario to exercise the preparedness and planning philosophy you have just read through. Hopefully it will showcase some key planning factors like having a P.A.C.E. plan for all actions, especially routes. I will highlight the use of the kit levels, and how a plan will not go as planned. If you practice and rehearse all your contingencies, you will be able to adjust to the current situation.
The scenario:
You are at work. You are 60+ miles from your home and have one major obstacle (river) in between your house and work. Your work location is a second-floor office cubicle with a couple of file cabinets and a desk in a mid-sized city. The office building has a parking garage attached. Your home is on 8 acres in a rural location about 30 miles outside of the closest urban built up area and there is a major city about 1 hour away that does not affect your routes home but can become an issue if the overall situation worsens. Choose any crisis; EMP, Civil Disturbance, Riots, Major Natural Disaster, or total collapse of society. It does not really matter what happens, but you need to get home as fast as you can due to the deteriorating situation. The power goes out at your office, and you begin to hear sirens from emergency vehicles. People in the office are beginning to panic trying to figure out what is happening. Gun shots in the distance. As you all look out the big windows on the second floor, you see what looks to be the beginning of a chaotic situation. You decide to get home now before it gets worse.
You gather your Get Home Bag (Level 2, GHB) from under your desk. Double check that you have your Level 1 kit (EDC) on your person, and you make your way to your Toyota 4Runner out in the employee parking lot on the ground level of a parking garage attached to your building. As you make your way to the first floor via the stairs, you see several people huddling on the landing of the stairs not knowing what to do. The door to the parking garage uses a magnetic lock, with the power out, it releases as a failsafe and is unable to be secured. You arrive at your vehicle and place your GHB behind your seat on the floor. You open the back of your vehicle and get some water and protein bars to place up in front for the drive home which you know will be longer due to the traffic and detours. You also do a quick visual check of your Vehicle Emergency Kit (Level 2, VEK) you have in a Plano storage box secured in the back. Also, inside your rear cargo area is a tool kit with repair items for tires, hoses etc. Including an air compressor, extra tie downs (ratchet straps and 1-inch tubular nylon), a case of bottled water, another smaller container (food) with a couple of MRE’s, protein bars, tuna fish packets, etc. You added some tools to your kit in the last few weeks, a set of bolt cutters (small and large) and a Stanley fat max utility bar. On the back of your SUV, you have a spare tire with 1 x 5-gallon fuel can. You attempt to send your wife a text, but it is stuck sending like if the towers are being overloaded. You turn on your Garmin InReach and send a message to your wife that you are starting your way home. This will send her a location via the GPS that she can track if she has power to monitor it on the computer or phone.
As you start your SUV and prepare to drive out of the parking garage you realize that everyone is trying to exit and there is a small traffic jam on the first floor. You adjust your planned exit to use the entrance instead and it looks like some already have done the same since the drop arm barrier is broken off. You exit the garage and begin to take the most unused side streets to make your way north out of the city. Lucky for you it is not too far until you will have a couple of route options for the drive home. Since you planned your routes based off your Area Study you did when you moved out in the country, you are prepared.
You have a couple of apps running on your iPhone and your iPad that are blue toothed to a Bad Elf GPS puck (no cell service required). You also have a good city map and a Delorme atlas for your state along with your compass handy on the passenger seat next to you. These will keep you going in the right direction as you make detours to avoid being stuck in congestion. You decide to take a risk due to activity ahead on your current route and use an unknown alleyway between two tall buildings. You take it cautiously, as it makes a left-hand turn, and you realize that the way is blocked by a 7-foot wooden fence just short of an empty side street. You stop and cut the engine, look, and listen for a few minutes. You don’t want to ram through it with your vehicle and maybe damaging your radiator. You exit your vehicle, scan the buildings on either side as you get out your Fatmax utility bar and a folding hand saw, move to the fence. You look between the wooden fence slats to see what is on the other side, looks clear. You avoid pounding on the fence so there is less noise that may attract people nearby. You pry off some of the 1 x 6 sturdy boards that make up the fence and cut the cross 2×4’s and the one 4×4 post supporting them. You know the width of your SUV and in 10-15 minutes of prying and cutting you have an opening. You exit the alleyway onto this side street, which is on the outskirts of the city, but you still need to go north to get closer to home.
You look at your map and decide to get away from the city as soon as possible but it will take you a little out of your way from your planned routes. You adjust your plan accordingly. You will need to make a security halt and do a good map check because of this deviation. The first chance you get, you find a concealed location in the country where you take an old logging road that is overgrown and pull off into the trees. Again, you turn off you SUV, so you can look and listen for anyone. You get out and do a quick look around your immediate area and conduct a security check. Now you need to plan a new route to one of your already planned routes to get home. As you study your maps and use the Gaia GPS App on your iPad to plot your location. You noticed there is a power line easement that will lead you to the railroad tracks and the train bridge that crosses that river on your primary route. Good, so now you look at your vehicle to make sure it is good, tires, no leaks, etc. While drinking some water and eating a protein bar you make marks on your map as reference points. You then take a quick look down the logging road where you came down to make sure no one is there before heading back down it. You then start your SUV and head north to that power line easement.
As you come closer to the easement you decide to drive slower and through the woods as to not enter the easement at a known junction just in case people are in that area. As you are driving through the pinewoods you hear an audible pop and stop. You shut off the engine and look and listen. As you get out of your vehicle and check the tires, you noticed that you have a puncture in your tire now. It is a solid stick poking into the sidewall where it meets the tread. You get out the air compressor and tire kit and plug the hole with two large plugs. You add air to the tire with the air compressor but you keep it in the back of the SUV with the doors closed to minimize the noise. After you complete your tire repair, you take a few minutes again to listen and look for any movement around your area and then continue on your route. Since the easement can be a natural line of drift for people walking or even driving like yourself, you take precautions by stopping before this danger area and looking up and down the easement on foot. It looks clear and you are hoping most people are still stuck in the city or on the roads. You drive more aggressively along the established dirt road along the power lines. This road has been used by the power company’s maintenance vehicles, so it is somewhat maintained. You notice you must cross a hardball paved road up ahead, so you take the necessary security precautions. You stop, pull off the easement road and conceal your vehicle. But as you approach the paved road on foot, you noticed it has a cable across the dirt road on both sides of the hardball road. This cable is attached to six-inch wooden posts and prevents you from easily bypassing it. When you return to your vehicle you get out your large bolt cutters and have them ready. You drive up to the cables and get out quickly so you can cut the cables on both sides of the paved road before you cross it with your SUV. You again drive aggressively to make as much distance you can from that paved road.
You continue to drive the power line easement road without incident. As you approach the railroad tracks, you cautiously move up the tracks to where you can see the train bridge. You use your binos to see the other side and notice it is identical to this side. No obstacles to prevent you from driving across it. You scan the area for people or threats. None, so as you drive, you adjust your vehicle straddling the left track and drive across the bridge. Once on the other side you look in your rear-view mirror and noticed some movement in the trees behind you. Suddenly, your back window is shattered as you hear several gunshots. You drop off the tracks onto the side of the railroad embankment in an attempt to avoid more rounds. You see an opening in the trees on your side of the tracks and noticed it is another dirt road. You immediately turn left onto it and drive fast to put some distance between you and the ambushers. You also try to maintain your location on the GPS and map. It seems you are now in one of the many state game lands that stretch between your work and your home.
Your vehicle is having issues and you realize your fuel is almost empty. You turn off the dirt road and pull up in a security halt behind a rise of the terrain, shut off your SUV, get out and set up looking back down the road you came for anyone following, you see no one yet. You look under your vehicle to see what the issue is, and you conclude that a couple of rounds pierced your fuel tank and your fuel is flowing out fast. As you look through your Vehicle Emergency Kit (VEK) and repair tools you realize you don’t have a plastic fuel tank repair kit made yet. You begin to improvise a plug out one of the thick branches, but no luck. You take in your situation by determining your location on your map and the distance to home. You realize it should take you until tomorrow night to get home if you must walk. You begin to prioritize your gear/kit. You have your Level 1, your Level 2 (GHB) and your Level 2 (VEK). You know need to take items from your VEK to augment your EDC and GHB. You adjust the items in your GHB to accommodate the extra items from the VEK. Primarily food, water, ammo, extra medical and technical. While repacking your GHB you also consider that there is an active threat to your rear and want to make sure you have the extra mags for your EDC pistol. You were able to get your vehicle off the road and into the woods before you had to stop, so you begin to conceal it with a camo net you have in your VEK and some natural foliage. You mark your SUV’s location on the map, Garmin InReach and your iPad. Lastly, you reach into the glove compartment and secure all your important documents (insurance card, registration, etc.) not wanting to leave anything with your name and address. As you are getting this all together, you hear noises and movement back down the road near where you turned off. You expedite your departure from your vehicle and move out quietly but rapidly to continue to put distance between you and the ambushers. You do not want to risk getting into a firefight with multiple attackers with better weapons. As you move, you change directions every so often and conduct good counter tracking TTP’s to prevent the ambushers from flowing you easily. You regret leaving your vehicle and some gear back there with a chance to be found, but your family is the priority, and you have extra gear at the house. You plan to bug in and listen to the shortwave radio to gain information on what is happening in your AO.
As you move and made some distance from your vehicle, you look for a good defendable hole up site to work out your routes. You do a quick security halt to conduct a SLLS (Stop, Look, Listen and Smell) and a map check with your USGS Topo Maps that you had in your GHB. You see a draw running west to east about 500 meters ahead, the contour lines look close together meaning it is steep and the far side looks to be higher elevation. You decide to move across it to find a that hole up site to rest and plan your new routes. You pick up an azimuth that takes you west of the spot you picked on the map so you can cross the draw and fish hook into the spot above the draw. This will give you a vantage point to watch your back trail and the draw. After crossing the draw and as you begin to fish hook east toward the spot you find a thickly vegetated knoll above the draw and decide to hole up here for a short rest. It is concealed and defendable for a short period of time. As you settle in, you conduct another SLLS. You then begin to look at your Garmin InReach that you attached to your GHB and the USGS Topo maps, you calculate you have little over 30 kilometers to home and further west than your route PACE plan. You know you can walk 4 MPH on dirt roads with 50 lbs, so if you did this walk accordingly, it would take you 5 hours on a straight line. But this is not on a road, and it is not a straight path. When you include the possible unknown threats and known threats you must reduce your speed, move slower, take more security halts, use different directions, etc. You look at the time and it is about to be dusk or EENT (Early Evening Nautical Twilight). As you plan the route, you know you can stay off any roads and natural lines of drift or in other words, danger areas from here on out. You determine you should be home after dark tomorrow night. You check your other signal devices in your GHB, you have a section of VS-17 Panel, a strobe light with IR cover, a GMRS radio with extra batteries, red lens flashlight and your cell phone. You already made your initial message via InReach to the wife when you departed from work. She should have received it, marked the time you departed and hopefully can track your InReach as you have been moving. Knowing your plan and how long it should take to drive, she would expect you to be home in a couple of hours. But that is not going to happen now since you are on foot and moving tactically. You send another message to her on the InReach, wait for her reply but no response. You are too far to use the GMRS radio, so you make sure it is turned off to save the batteries. She knows to begin checking the cell phone and radio at the top of the hour for 15 minutes once you fail to make your arrival time. You continue to move toward home.
You pick up and move out to the north avoiding all danger areas as much as possible. For the first couple of legs, you do extensive counter tracking to make sure the ambushers do not follow your route. It is dark tonight since the illumination is low. The moon is waxing so it will increase each night. You planned your route using handrails as much as possible. Making sure you establish a good attack point and backstop for your RON position. You arrive at your RON position just after midnight and conduct your priorities of work; security, withdraw plan, weapons maintenance, route planning, water resupply, eat chow, rest, and stand to. It took you about 6 hours to move almost 4 miles closer to home. You moved at a tactical pace of 1 kph through the woods under the cover of darkness. You hole up for the night and plan on moving out before first light tomorrow. You have about 16 more miles to get home and you want to get there in just as many hours. At a pace of 1 kph you know you won’t be able to make that distance in 16 hours, so you plan on moving at a faster pace for part of your movement tomorrow.
It is 4 a.m. And you are ready to move out before it gets light. You ensure you leave nothing at your hole up site. Last night you replenished your water from a small creek about 300 meters from your hole up site. You travel the rest of the day without any more problems from people or terrain. You managed to gain time on your route by using handrails along a railroad track that was heading in your direction. You made sure you stayed off the tracks a good 100-200 meters but tried to maintain visual of it as you moved rapidly through easy terrain with less under brush. It is getting dark now and you know you are a few miles from your house. You stop in a security halt and try to establish communications with your wife, your cell is not working so you give the GMRS radio a try. You broadcast a couple of times at the top of the hour. You wait and hear her respond and you let her know how far you are out; from what direction you are coming and that you will give her a nighttime signal for link up as per the link up plan. She acknowledges it all. As you approach the clearing that is behind your house, you observe it for anything unusual. Seeing that it is clear, you turn on your radio and establish commo again with her. You turn on your primary nighttime signal, an IR strobe light for her to acknowledge. You have one set of NVG’s, and she has them at the house. You wait for her to acknowledge what she sees. But nothing…. so, you switch to the Alternate, a red lens flashlight with three flashes. She sees that, responds with 2 flashes and comes across the radio with what she sees. You confirm and you arrive at your door a few minutes later. After the greetings, you realize you never taught your wife how to operate the NVGs. But she defiantly knew the alternate signals from the link up plan. Time for some more training.
Conclusion: As I try to detail in this scenario, you must have a flexible plan. Be prepared to change and adjust it according to the current situation on the ground. Your kit levels aid you in maintaining the flexibility and ability to adjust and also to resupply on the go. Continue to maintain forward progress and avoid having to double back unless you have no other choice. You are dealing with time, distance, and contingencies; having a good PACE plan to help you is crucial. The other part I try to emphasis is not everything goes according to your plan. If you rely on other people in your plan, make sure they know and understand it thoroughly. When it comes to special equipment, make sure everyone knows how to use it. Last note I want to make; ensure you cover all possibilities with your vehicle. Now some things you won’t be able to fix, but leaks, hoses, fan belts, are fixable on the road if you have the right things on hand.
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