Tag Archives: evacuation plan

Mormon handcarts

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Mormon handcarts for evacuations

Recently while checking up on friends and family on Facebook I ran across a picture of a family I know. They were participating in the sesquicentennial celebration of the pioneer trek the “Mormons” [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints] did when the early church migrated to Utah. The hand carts that they built and used for this trek were very sturdy and could carry a heavy load. The people were very sturdy too, both then and now.

Literally these people carried all of their worldly goods with them. They walked over one thousand miles rain or shine, pulling the handcarts for months on end. In this day and age how many of us could pull that off today? Not many I bet.

Every year our town has “Frontier Days” 9 days of rodeo and party. There are 4 parades during this time and the local LDS members [Mormons] always has handcarts in the parades. Very interesting to watch.

Hold that picture in your mind and follow me down this rabbit trail if you will. ; ]

I have seen what some people call their 72 hour kits. Some of them have weighed in at 70lbs and they think that they are going to bug out on foot when the SHTF. Or worse they don’t plan on walking at all so they have boxes of stuff in the car and then hit the long parking lot of the freeway out of town and use all of the gas in 10 miles of bumper to bumper traffic.

With this in mind another friend and his family built a Mormon handcart to base their bug out plans on. I think that he had a good idea. Following is a report on how large of a payload could be carried by the handcarts.

***The handcarts generally carried up to 250 pounds (110 kg) of supplies and luggage, though they were capable of handling loads as heavy as 500 pounds (230 kg). Carts used in the first year’s migration were made entirely of wood (“Iowa hickory or oak”); in later years a stronger design was substituted, which included metal elements.[10][11][12]
The handcart companies were organized using the handcarts and sleeping tents as the primary units. Five persons were assigned per handcart, with each individual limited to 17 pounds (7.7 kg) of clothing and bedding. Each round tent, supported by a center pole, housed 20 occupants and was supervised by a tent captain. Five tents were supervised by the captain of a hundred (or “sub-captain”). Provisions for each group of one hundred emigrants were carried in an ox wagon, and were distributed by the tent captains. Excerpted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers ***

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/shelter-mobile-1/

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/ready-or-not-things-will-happen/

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/ready-or-not-fun-things-will-happen/

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/driving-plan-1/

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/rally-points/

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/why-72-hours/

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/cb-radio/

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/are-you-prepared/

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/water-storage-2l-coke-bottles-2/

Driving plan 1

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For your next trip OR as the start to your evacuation planning you have to know how much fuel you will need if you are driving. How far will you be traveling? [Break this down into days or legs with planned rest stops.]

To estimate this you will need to know what your current gas mileage is. You should be tracking your mileage anyway along with the oil and other fluids used in your vehicle.

Every time that you get fuel, log it into your travel records along with your odometer reading. Then divide the miles traveled by amount of fuel used = miles per gallon.

Example I drove 350 miles and used 21 gallons = 16.7 miles per gallon.

Take the projected total miles you plan to travel and divide that figure by your current mileage, the result will be the projected number of gallons fuel you may consume for the trip. ADD 10% for variance and safety aka fudge factor.

To keep things simple enough so that even I can understand it.

My current vehicle gets 10 miles to the gallon of gas in town [actually it is closer to 17 miles to the gallon but that is harder to do the math]. The miles per gallon –mpg- that we get out on the highway is 20 [actually we get closer to 23 mpg].

Total projected round trip miles is 2,000. So the problem is set up as,

Total projected trip miles / mpg
=_____ fuel amount needed.

We always plan for the worse mileage so that we can take side trips if we see or hear about fun stuff while we are gallivanting about.

How far do you plan to cover during each day or leg of your trip?

Back when we were much younger we would split the driving between 2 or 3 adults and we would cover 1,200 miles in a day [24 hours] so that we would have more time at our destination.

Realistically if you are going to see stuff along the way and be a tourist don’t expect to cover more than about 300 miles a day IF that. And plan way stations along your route.

As an example one year a friend from our military days was visiting from ‘back east’. At the end of his visit I took him to the state capitol to catch the Amtrak train home.

The drive was planned to take 2.5 hours with a planned detour of 4 hours to a park along the way. The park is a natural rock bridge that had been carved over the centuries by a large creek.

The park portion had several hiking trails and there were those standing BBQ cook areas with picnic tables that were comfortable for the lunch we had packed.

The site was / is very beautiful and has a rich history as an oasis for the local American Indians. One of the pluses is that it is well protected from the wind. Some of the other features included more than enough fresh water for the tribe and their animals. There are several apple trees which are reputed to have been planted by the Indians. Game such as fish, deer, rabbits and birds are plentiful. I didn’t have time to search very hard but there were many edible plants such as Purslane, plantain, cattails, milkweed and burdock.

I can really see why the Indians would tarry there and perhaps even a good place to settle in the general area.

Round trip was about 400 miles and took less than a tank of gas. Total time away from home was under 12 hours

That was a brief example of a travel journal entry.

www.preparesurvivethrive.us

Changing batteries

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Changing batteries.

 

For the safest functioning of smoke and CO – carbon monoxide – alarms we would change the batteries when our clocks would change because that put it very close to every 6 months and was simple to remember. Well, they changed those actions a few years ago, so it is not as simple as the old days. Normally now the first weekend of April and of October is still a good time to swap out the batteries on your safety alarms. That is one of the projects that we have set up for this weekend. Another thing to consider doing at this time of year is going through your 72 our kit [aka BoB] and rotating the food out and replacing it with new stuff and swapping the seasonal clothing along with making sure that it still fits.

 

While you are changing out the batteries in your alarm systems go ahead and put fresh batteries into your bug out bags. BTW never store the batteries installed in the devices as they can leak and ruin the device and other stuff. Instead keep them in a plastic container such as a box or bag which can be sealed.

 

This is also a good time for your family to discuss or review all the items that you have in your kits to see if you need more practice with the tools or if something better has been discovered to add to the Bug out bags. An example would be having the first BBQ of the year and making use of the fire starters out of your 72 our kit to start the grill, it would be great practice and evaluation, not to mention how fun outdoor cooking is nor how wonderful it tastes.

 

Please consider sharing some of the things you carry in your bug out bags or what types of safety tips that you may have found useful such as smoke and CO monitors ect..

 

Thanks.

 

www.PrepareSurviveThrive.us

Family Disaster Plan

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Your Family Disaster Plan contact info
Fill in the pertinent information regarding your household disaster plan in the space below or on another sheet of paper.
Once you have completed this form, make photocopies and supply one to each member of your family or team and to your out of area contact person. –Attach a current family / team picture to the back of this and laminate it.

In the event of an emergency in our home, we will meet at ______________________  [location close by your home.]

In the event of an emergency and we are unable to return home, we will meet at: _________________________Location, _________________________ Address _________________ telephone number.

Emergency contact for our family is:
Name________________________ Address______________________
Daytime phone number _________
Evening phone number _________
Cell phone number[s] ___________
E-mail address ________________
Our web group site is ___________________________ it is suggested that ALL members of the family / team either be made ‘moderators” or that the site not be moderated at all.

List each family member’s work phone number, their cell phone number[s] and E-mail addresses.

Our family disaster survival kit is located at: _____________________________.
My individual kit is located at:_____________________________________________.