More and more people are turning to prepping as the realistic way to protect themselves in the event of, well, anything. If you want to get in on it, but you find yourself in a city rather than in the country — where prepping can be different — you aren’t alone! In fact, more and more people find themselves living in the city and then start to wonder: how can I be a proper prepper (try saying that 5 times, fast!) in the city? Here are some tips.
Keep a Bug Out Bag on You at All Times
It’s great to have a full bug out bag (BOB) for getting out of the city at home, but what about if you aren’t at home? What if you work an hour or more away from home and you take public transit or drive and park in a parking garage? Suddenly, getting home to get that bag is potentially impossible!
You’ll want to make sure that you’ve got an urban-designed (more on that in a minute) BOB on you, wherever you go. Have more than one, too, as they’ll have to be smaller and will run out of supplies faster. If you travel in your own vehicle, have a BOB in there. If you travel by public transit, have one at work.
Plan Your BOB Supplies for Urban Needs
Some people choose to shelter in place in the city itself rather than head out to the suburbs, which is also a great idea, at least until the mess dies down. If this is your approach, here are some crucial urban prepping must-haves that you perhaps wouldn’t need in the ‘burbs.
- A cell phone with a prepaid card
- A handheld GPS
- Cash in small, varying bills
- Sprouting seeds (and pots to plant them in) for essential fruits and veggies
Prepare Your Home
You also need to make sure that your home itself, whether it’s an apartment or an actual house, is properly protected (as much as you are allowed to do within your lease/agreement). Some essential tasks include:
1. Secure Your Doors and Windows
Through steel-framed, barred triple-glazed windows, steel doors complete with multiple locks and peepholes, and more. You’ll need to protect yourself and your resources by barricading yourself in.
2. Have Lots of Toilet Paper and Water Filters
Weird, maybe, but important. You won’t have access to leaves for toilet paper, so this becomes essential. You also can’t trust that you’ll have city water and will have to rely on water from the run-off. This means a water filter is literally life-saving.
3. Be Ready with a Camping Stove
You don’t know how long you’ll have power, so make sure you’ve got a propane-powered camping stove and other propane-powered essentials appliances. Also, stock up on propane!
Being a prepper in the city doesn’t mean that you have to do it halfway. It just means that you need to look at your home as a fortress and your supplies as limited. Prepping is still as valuable in the city, if not more so, as it is in the country.
