The end might be near… but now what? It's important that you know what you should do now before the disaster takes place. The last thing you want to be is caught unprepared without having a bug out bag. Besides, that, there are other things you should be aware of during the present situation. Here are five things to keep in mind during a disaster.

Collect intelligence on the current situation
Before you start phase 1 of any operation, you’re essentially in phase 0. This means that you should be shaping your environment, to include setting up ways to know what’s going on (which is what’s called Intelligence). During an EMP that blasts across most of the country, the first thing you’ll notice will depend on what time of day it is.
Make sure you get in touch with your neighbors. This could be critical not for just figuring out what’s going on, but for neighborhood security and augmenting skills you don’t have.

Gather gear and personnel for movement
If you’re already at your primary rally point, such as if you’re bugging in, best thing to do is immediately fill your tubs, sinks, pots, and other containers with water because that pressure probably won’t hold for long. Then move to gather your stuff in case you have to leave. Your plan must on some level involve bugging out at some point.

Establish comms with your team
If you can’t use electronics to reach someone, you should leave a message somehow. Have a predetermined location that everyone knows to check. Make it something that is out of the ordinary, can’t be accidentally done, is unlikely to be changed or moved, and easy to notice without having to walk right up to it. An example might be to bend the road sign at a particular corner as the sign that you’ve decided to bug out and they should move to the primary rally point and/or make comms with you.

Move to the primary rally point
In most cases, your primary rally point will be someone’s home but not in all cases, and for all you know, that home may not be there once you get there. Everyone should have noticed something happened and remembered during training that when ‘X’ happens, they should move to the primary rally point somehow.

Collect intelligence on the situation
Now is when you realize that going it alone would have been a stupid idea. You’ll have to make sure you’re set with food, water, shelter, fire, etc and set up guards who can scan the area so a threat presents itself in time and distance to react effectively, but you have to know your situation first.

First thing to do once you have a hasty defense set up is to do your three inventories. Essentially, you need to figure out what you have on you in the way of gear and skills (and what you don’t), what your immediate needs are (medical, water, security), what’s in the immediate area that could be of use (or isn’t), and what’s in the extended area that may either present a problem or a solution.

Before reaching out to neighbors and other people nearby, make sure you've evaluated the situation for your best course of action. From there, you can plan with others on how to ensure your survival. For more information on steps to take during a disaster, visit Graywolf Survival!

Featured Image via Steven Guzzardi/Flickr