Urban Survival

How to Prepare for Urban Survival 

The UK is a highly populated island with most of the people living in built up areas with thousands of others very close by. This means there must be a completely different mindset when it comes to prepping for Urban Survival in the city and towns.

Of course it is fine knowing how to set up a camp and extract water from a plant leaf and catch a fish, but it is far more possible you will be caught in a situation where it’s you, thousands of others and a concrete jungle.

Not miles of wilderness with food to hunt and an abundance of natural resources at you disposal.

You cannot rely on the emergency services to even reach you in an Urban Survival situation especially a disaster scenario that takes out the whole of a city and worse still the whole country, like a full power grid shutdown or blackout.

There are two types of scenarios for surviving a city type disaster - home or work –

at home you should be prepared and ready with all you need to hunker down and ride out the problems if that is your chosen Bug In or Bug Out  method.

BUT – “What would you do if a disaster scenario began to unfold whilst you were at work in a city”? 

The #1 rule for surviving in a city is – get out of the city fast.

Pick up as much essential prepping kit as you can along the way [ food, clothing etc - see below ] but take yourself out of the danger zone as quickly as possible and as safely as you can.

It doesn’t take long for a situation to escalate putting you in real danger 

What are the main considerations to surviving in a town or city.

• Full survival skills and prepping kit must still be the main concern for any UK Prepper way before any disaster strikes.
• It goes without saying that a good EDC kit is a must. It must also be specific to the possible situations found in surviving in a city
• Personal protection like UK Legal Pepper Spray is also high on the list to ward of possible muggers.

The main rules of survival - these remain the same for any survival situation

Shelter.

In a town or city finding shelter should be quite easy – finding SAFE shelter is a bigger consideration and may take a bit more time once you have assessed the overall situation.

Water.

Providing you have good preps in your EDC, water should not be a big problem in a city either – with most houses having storage tanks and various other water sources available.

Your primary method of ensuring you have safe drinking water is something like the DrinkSafe Water Straw designed for exactly this type of situation.

Being small, light and compact it is the number 1 item to pack in a EDC.

Fire.

The main need for a fire in the wilderness is for warmth, cooking, drying out clothes and physiological comfort – these are not necessarily the same needs in an urban environment as it’s very possible your shelter is inside a home – but a fire is still essential for cooking and warming water etc. It is, therefore, essential to have a means of starting a fire readily available in your EDC,

Food.

Food presents the most challenges when considering how to prepare for urban survival – you are not really going to be able to hunt down food as you would in the wild and the stores will be stripped of all foods in days.

As soon as possible you must assess the situation – listen to a radio and try to see what has happened – talk to people and get information.

Never underestimate the severity of  a disaster situation and remember – it can always escalate into something far worse.

If it is possible and safe to do so, try to get food that will keep and then hide it in a safe cache – do this as much as you can – make a note of where your caches are and repeat.

Pasta and all canned foods are the number one supplies to search out – any perishable foods found must be eaten straight away or stored with you to eat that day.

Other Urban Survival Tricks.

Raid the dump! Find your nearest local dump or tipping station – there will be an abundance of clothes, blankets, pots etc. that will be free available for you to take as essential supplies.