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/