The Priorities of Work

The S has Hit The Fan with full force, you have been forced to evacuate your home and are on the move to your Bugout location. You might be in a vehicle, on a bicycle, or on foot. Most likely you are with a group of people, your immediate family and a couple close friends who you trust with your life. Times are tough in your area, law enforcement is spotty at best and can’t be depended upon if you run across groups of less than savory types. You decide that you need to stop for the evening and make camp. People in your group need to rest as everyone has been on the move all day, they are hungry, need to re-hydrate and the kids are exhausted. You find an area which looks like a promising camp site so you start to settle in, but what should your priorities be? Should you build a fire, lounge around eating while others nod off to sleep?  Only do this if you want to make yourself an easy target.  Here are a few ideas to keep in mind if you are ever faced with a situation like I described above.

Selecting a camp site is not as easy as you might think. If you come across an area which looks like a great place to camp, there’s your sign to avoid it at all cost. If you think it’s great so will others and the last thing you want to do is put yourself in a place which can be easily discovered by people with bad intentions. Choose a location which is unappealing and therefore will probably be avoided by others. Select an area which provides good concealment, is easy to defend and which also offers escape routes. Also try to avoid low lying areas if possible. Once you have your camp site selected here’s a look at what your priorities of work should be.

• Establish Security, the #1 rule.  When you first arrive you want 100% security set up while you are getting a feel for your area, as you progress down through the priorities of work you can scale back the amount of people on security (keeping watch).
• Identify possible avenues of approach (roads, trails) or places from which other people (read: bad guys) could try to surprise your group.  If there is a cliff on the eastern side of your camp, it’s probably not an avenue of approach.  An open valley which funnels into a fire break through the woodline up towards your camp could be considered an avenue of approach.
• Assign areas of responsibility (to defend) based on those avenues of approach.  Typically you will want to have your group arranged so that all areas of your camp are covered, think of it like a 360 degree circle (or a clock face) with people spaced equally throughout.  If there is a prominent avenue of approach on one side of your camp, you might want to assign more than one person to that area.
• Identify one entry and exit point from your camp site, and everyone should be aware of this. This way if someone hears noise or foot traffic from any place other than your designated entry/exit point, they can be certain it is not a member of your group.  Nobody, and I mean NOBODY leaves the perimeter of the camp (to use the bathroom etc) without telling someone else.
• Come up with an evacuation plan in case you have to leave in a hurry, make sure everyone is aware of the plan.  You can use reference points in your evacuation plan.  For example: “Everyone remember the intersection over the last hill we crossed, the one with the old gas station next to it?  If something happens we all get out and head back over that hill and link up at the gas station.”  This way if people get separated they will know where to go instead of blindly running through the woods.
• Check communications plan, be it two way radios or person to person (hand signals).
• Re-check and verify that everyone knows their assigned areas of responsibility.
• Establish sleep and rest plans, determine who will be sleeping and who will be on guard. Never, EVER assign only one person to stay awake.  This is just asking for someone to fall asleep while on shift.
• Verify and redistribute food, water, ammunition (if necessary).
• Clean weapons (at least check, re-lube, complete a functions check). This should also be done in shifts, so that all weapons are not down at once. Also don’t do this at night when you could easily misplace a firing pin or other small object.
• Designate one area (outside of the camp perimeter) for bathroom functions. Dig a small trench and don’t leave your waste out in the open.

Some other considerations.

Everyone doesn’t have to be involved in the priorities of work. Other members of your group can be setting up tents, preparing dinner meals, helping to re-distribute supplies. While the concept of the priorities of work comes from the military, groups of families traveling together are not military and that has to be taken into consideration. Children get hungry, older people need to rest more often, family members with medical conditions might move slower than everyone else.  Running people into the ground only leads to a state of diminishing returns.

Noise and light discipline must be exercised at all times. A small fire at night can be seen from miles away. Unless it is absolutely necessary you should avoid all fires and white light flashlights at night. There is no better way to advertise your location to everyone in the area. Sound carries at night, loud conversations should be kept to a whisper.

Leave no trace of your presence.  When you leave bury everything and try to wipe the area clean, as if you were never there.  Leaving MRE wrappers, cans of old food and other trash is just asking for trouble.  Someone else could come along, find your junk and decide you might be worth tracking.  No bueno.

I hope all of these tips related to the priorities of work have been worthwhile.  This is a very high level overview of how things could be run if in the specific scenario I described (post SHTF) played out.  Feel free to modify according to your needs as each person or group might choose to operate differently.  The important takeaway from this is that you have a plan and preferably a checklist to go along with that plan.  Better a short pencil than a long memory.