Identifying and noting assets in your area

If their is a likelyhood of you possibly facing long term isolation or a sit x / SHTF scenario its always wise to have already made a note of where certain goods and materials are stored in and around your home town. it makes scavenging and resupply much easier and safer if you have already noted where the essential items are held.

Identify the following in your area

Recoverable sources of Firewood, Coal & Coke, Peat, Heating and fuel oil, Bottled Gas (butane and propane). Check coal yards, railway sidings, gas bottled refilling centers etc.
Petroleum Products, Petrol, Diesel, Avgas, Paraffin (Kerosene), Hypoid, Lubricants etc
(Most petroleum products will need treating with preservatives) Petrol stations, refineries, transport depots etc
Building Materials, Lumber, Bricks, Cement, and Aggregates etc. builders yards, DIY centers, quarries, building sites etc

Water Supplies, Tanks, ponds, reservoirs, streams, wells (including capped ones) artesian and aquifer supplies,
Water filtration and purification equipment and stockists.
Identify locations of fast flowing or fast falling water that could be used to turn generators, mills, etc.

Food stores, supermarkets, distribution centers, regional warehouses, grain stores, etc
Free range herds of cattle, sheep, chickens, deer etc
Rabbit farms, Rabbit warrens, Fish farms, angling clubs.

Tool stores, engineering suppliers, plant hire agencies, camping, caravanning and outdoor stores, sports shops, gun shops, gun smiths, boat yards, marinas, ships chandlers preserved railways etc

Remote housing that is conducive to self reliance, IE has things like functioning large chimneys and fire places, ultra insulated, double/ triple glazed, multi-fuel heating / cooking facilities, has a well or other clean water supply, solar panels, wind turbines, methane digesters, local supplies of fuel, defendable, etc other facilities like outdoor residential centers, outward bound centers, alternative technology centers, camping hostels, retreats etc are worth considering.

Check out footpaths, bridle ways, navigable water ways, rail lines, broadcasting masts, radio masts, wind farms, etc.

Please remember that in survival INFORMATION is not only power, but a lifesaver as well.

Great thread S & F for you Northern Raider. Everyone should be aware of what's already close at hand.

Native Americans utilized everything from their environment. Aside from what nature supplies we will have the added benefit of man made resources.

I really don't have to worry about firewood after a beetle attack we have acres of dead standing pinon around us. If the need should arise I know where to dig coal. There use to be an open pit mine not far from my house it has since been reclaimed but there are several more still open. Some of the coal is very near the surface even in the reclaimed areas. Colorado is known for having high grade coal. I have firebrick in my stove so we can burn it but I prefer wood. It could be a tradable commodity.

There is so much around us but many won't make the connection unless someone shows them. We would have to develop that "junk man" mentality seeing a use in everything throwing nothing away. Gee what a concept.

It makes me laugh to remember a time gathering wood with my sons. We were getting a rather old twisted pinion and my son was playing with a branch, it was a perfect twisted and bent spiral. He put his arm through it and the branch held his arm protected and bent in front of him like a sling. He said it was his cast and wore it to make us laugh but he was right it would have worked he said it was comfortable.

Although I live in a somewhat arid region there is so much around me. Water is the biggie I know the location of springs and numerous windmills for cattle tanks. There is also a stocked lake within walking distance.

My father lived out here as a boy they did dry land farming and my grandfather was a miner. They had a dirt floor house, something I threaten to do every time I sweep out yet another pan full of dirt, some livestock a horse but no car. Life was hard but they managed.

People have been scavengers here for decades. When mines were open towns sprung up around them. When the mines closed people relocated and took every last bit of their house with them except the concrete foundations and stairs. Littered all over the county are hundreds of old foundations and stairs to nowhere it's all they left.

As I drive for my job I get to see a fair amount of the city and it's a little weird to confess that ever since my first bug-out-route trial, and Northern Raider's advice about tunnels and the like, I've been paying more and more attention to where things are.

So it's been interesting to see where rail tunnels start and end up; water as a consumable and a LOC; fuel depots (in my opinion more a hazard than a resource down here); any buildings that would likely be unattended and forgotten about should TSHTF, particularly those with big basements; where tools and other supplies may be 'obtained'.

Unfortunately all the 'removables' will be subject to the 7-odd million locusts that also live here.

Originally posted by Nirgal
As I drive for my job I get to see a fair amount of the city and it's a little weird to confess that ever since my first bug-out-route trial, and Northern Raider's advice about tunnels and the like, I've been paying more and more attention to where things are.

So it's been interesting to see where rail tunnels start and end up; water as a consumable and a LOC; fuel depots (in my opinion more a hazard than a resource down here); any buildings that would likely be unattended and forgotten about should TSHTF, particularly those with big basements; where tools and other supplies may be 'obtained'.

Unfortunately all the 'removables' will be subject to the 7-odd million locusts that also live here.

I REALLY have to sit down with you one day with an OS map and go through it together.

[edit on 18-3-2009 by Northern Raider]

Another great thread NR.

Excellent idea though I'm sure if you had a electronic record or paper record that the SS sorry police could use this as evidence of a would be T-rist.

I take it, it would be better to have a mental record of everything local of say 5 miles ?

What do you think ?

reply to post by colec156


Yes, street maps and copies of Yellow Pages could be construed as "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".

Having said that the Yellow Pages, in the wrong hands, could also be classified an offensive weapon.

Maybe on your maps you could randomly scrawl arrows and "here be dragons". That might confuse the Fuzz.

The people who live behind and next door to us have horses. A very large potato processing plant 4 miles down the road with very large sheds for storing potatoes. Open range cattle all around. Steel fab shop and trailer factor 2 miles the other way. Local airport 3 miles away with a big truck full of av gas. Hard rock mines all around with all the cool stuff that you need to make big rocks into small rocks.

Mark your maps with a old fountain pen using milk.

Then if SHTF all you need to do is iron the map with a iron.

This will cause the dry milk to turn brown and reveal the information.

urine will also do this.

en.wikipedia.org...

Some vendors now offer invisible ink for use in computer inkjet printers. [1] Such inks are usually visible under ultraviolet light. Typical uses include printing information on business forms for use by the form processor, without cluttering up the visible contents of the form.

With this you could print maps and they would look like blank paper or you could over print something that was non threatening.

Your standard Yellow Pages combined with local A-Z map covering a few miles radius annotated with different colour UV pens would make your resource map completely innocent looking

All that would be needed is a wind-up LED torch with the standard LEDs replaced with UV ones, such as these

Also, the UV pens could be used to create hidden messageboards or resource signposts in sheltered places such as inside phone boxes...only those in the know would have access to the information

Originally posted by citizen smith
Your standard Yellow Pages combined with local A-Z map covering a few miles radius annotated with different colour UV pens would make your resource map completely innocent looking

All that would be needed is a wind-up LED torch with the standard LEDs replaced with UV ones, such as these

Also, the UV pens could be used to create hidden messageboards or resource signposts in sheltered places such as inside phone boxes...only those in the know would have access to the information

Superb thread NR! Good point on the wind-up torch Citizen. You really have got a master-scavanger head on your shoulders man!
Another point to note is the nearest military barracks / TA base and also cop shops.
Both for the good and bad points.
Local Radio stations will have a good chance of being stocked with spare electronics parts too.

Originally posted by WatchRider

Originally posted by citizen smith
Your standard Yellow Pages combined with local A-Z map covering a few miles radius annotated with different colour UV pens would make your resource map completely innocent looking

All that would be needed is a wind-up LED torch with the standard LEDs replaced with UV ones, such as these

Also, the UV pens could be used to create hidden messageboards or resource signposts in sheltered places such as inside phone boxes...only those in the know would have access to the information

Superb thread NR! Good point on the wind-up torch Citizen. You really have got a master-scavanger head on your shoulders man!

Another point to note is the nearest military barracks / TA base and also cop shops.
Both for the good and bad points.
Local Radio stations will have a good chance of being stocked with spare electronics parts too.

Rumour has it the larger BT Exchanges have still got survival supplies, back up gennies, and electrical spares stored in the cellars to sustain the engineers in case of nukular ( simpsons ) war.

A member of my family used to work for BT about 20 years ago.

I was allowed in on the night shift one time to visit.

I went wandering about.

I didn't see the survival gear stored, largely cause the cellar was about 5 floors down, but all the old switchroom equipment was just in situ in room after room.
Not cleared out of replaced. All the new gear and computer systems were in other rooms. But they'd kept hold of the 1950s to 1970s stuff. Even as a kid it felt strange seeing it all still there. Kinda spooky too I might add!

In all fairness, if we were to say take a 2 mild radius from where we live, it should be easy enough to mentally record where most resources are.

I have just spent 2 minutes with my eyes closed going through my mind as to where fresh water is, local petrol stations, gas compound, supermarkets, woodland, diy stores, and routes that take you of all major roads.

Maps could be very useful for further a field, say after 2 miles and your near a village, a map of the area could be marked up.

Maybe after 2 miles you could have 4 different maps of north east south west. though I imagine this is what many of us have already to follow bug out routes.

Originally posted by WatchRider
A member of my family used to work for BT about 20 years ago.

I was allowed in on the night shift one time to visit.

I went wandering about.

I didn't see the survival gear stored, largely cause the cellar was about 5 floors down, but all the old switchroom equipment was just in situ in room after room.
Not cleared out of replaced. All the new gear and computer systems were in other rooms. But they'd kept hold of the 1950s to 1970s stuff. Even as a kid it felt strange seeing it all still there. Kinda spooky too I might add!

I was furtrher told that the survival gear was kept down in the cellars near or next to a back up generator and fuel supply !!!

Chain-stores such as supermarkets should be avoided like the plague, and that many folks in the UK that watched the travesty that was 'Survivors' will have gotten the idea from the show of looking for the wholesale and distribution hubs. Same for the B&Q/Homebase/etc DIY stores.

Little backwater industrial units would be a better bet for such things as DIY and engineering supplies. Plant hire or even such things as 'motability scooter' centres would be very useful for scavenging for battery units and using as 'electric tractors'

...and I'm sure me nan would approve of her A-Team-style steel-plate-clad electric shopping wagon

[edit on 28-3-2009 by citizen smith]

reply to post by citizen smith


Perhaps watching it would have been a good idea after all. Then at least I would know of the places the square-eyed would be going, then I could be somewhere else.

Ah well, it was probably every chain that bothered to sponsor the show.

Another thing I have just thought of.

Scout your local area with google earth / maps.
Do it all from your home, mark your own maps and go check out the local area.

You might even see something from the air that might not be to obvious from the ground.

Originally posted by colec156
Scout your local area with google earth / maps.
Do it all from your home, mark your own maps and go check out the local area. You might even see something from the air that might not be to obvious from the ground.

Hmmm...now that gives me an idea for a survival-game thread

Using the free version of Google Earth, select say one location each from 3 different areas such as wilderness/semi-rural agricultural/urban and challenge players to identify possible assets within a radius of 5 miles

[edit on 29-3-2009 by citizen smith]

Generators, All phone company buildings have them, The main phone company repair offices have portable units encase a field office or RO unit goes down. most doctors offices dentist offices have small units.
all are in the 10kw to 1mw range and all are diesel.
I know this because I was a generator repairmen.

Also a phone company building switch units(ROs remote offices) have some of the best battery backup systems around. high tech deep cycle gel cells in large banks to keep the phone system running for 12 to 24 hours if the generators fail. Microwave sites have both generators and large battery backup.
And they are heavy build building on high ground or mountain tops. a few are even underground bunkers. or nuclear hardened.

Many service company, construction company. lawn care, landscaping company trucks have generators on them.

The unit i will try the hardest get is a jaws of life unit from a fire department.
With one i can get into just about anyplace short of a bank vault.
And it will get me into the place to get the material i need to open a bank vault.
Gun Safes?? Most i can peel apart with a jaws of life in less then 15 mins.
The fleeing hordes of locusts will pass on most of the bolted down gun safes
because they would take hours/days to open with hand tools.
If you use a torch you will likely burn them out or if they have ammo blow them up. with the jaws its quick and easy. and SAFE.

At Storage companies a jaws unit in the back of a pickup and one person driving, one cutting locks and a couple opening the doors and checking the contents for us-ables could have 200 to 300 units open and cleaned out of usable items overnight.
A lot of people keep things like camping gear, tool. etc stored in these units when they are not using them.

In many areas you have backyard mechanics that live in apartments or condos where they can not work on there car and do the car repairs at these storage units and keep there tools and parts in them.

Also knowing how to tap large home type propane tanks to fill smaller 5 to 10 gal tanks and having the tap hose would be a very good thing. You don't need a pump just the proper tap hose system to draw liquid from the bottom of the tank and put it in the smaller tank.

Many people with summer or winter weekend cabins turn there tank off when they are not there.
In many areas the propane companies top off all the tanks in recreational cabin areas in the spring after the snow melts and again in the fall just before winter starts unless the cabin owner want different service.

In many cases these tank are almost always full.
Something firefighters in wild-land departments have found out the hard way as we watched forest fires sweep through these areas.

reply to post by citizen smith


Yeah, the game could be a idea for many would be survivalists.
I suppose you would give a random area as I can't imagine anyone wanting to give the true location away.

The good thing with google earth is you can scout vast area's before you head out into the world and use up resources.

Mind you, you will still have to scout out area's physically as not all the area's on google earth are bang up to date.