You did it! You made the 194-mile journey home with your ARK (Autonomous Recovery Kit); you were able to deploy your scooter, covered great distances while mastering guerrilla foraging and obtaining wild protein along the way. You then were able to find the closest helicopter launch pad as you had mapped out each one for your egresses just in case and did the proper Reconnaissance before you made the final dash to that helicopter pad. You then used the knowledge you learned in the Art of Negotiation by trading your complete 4k file PDF survival flash drive for a helicopter ride within eight miles of your house. Mission accomplished! Or… is it?
WHY YOUR HOME CAN BE A TARGET:
When it comes to preparedness, most look at their situation through a linear lens. But one thing I like to convey to people are that you should try and think of preparedness as interconnected modules. Within each module (graphic above) are decisions, like an oscillating mobius. For example: A leads to B. B changes C. C changes D. Every decision reshapes the next one.
People sometimes silo situations, build their gear and apocalyptic fantasy around that ONE scenario, which in my belief, will kill them because human nature is to survive, but confirmation bias leads to hubris which leads to ultimate death. (I know this sounds harsh, but if you are new to preparedness, even the best laid plans can go sideways quickly.)
In a SHTF scenario, EVERYTHING is fluid. Movement = Life. Time is either your friend or your enemy. Comfort can sometimes be a silent and slow killer. It is during a time of crisis when you have to make a choice;
Leave the safety of my home and take my chances outside or become a prisoner inside my own home.
An anchor of perceived safety for someone is unfortunately one carefully thrown Molotov cocktail away from being flushed out of their precious sanctuary after “X” amount of time. And the false hope in the thin veneer of society evaporates quickly when local and state police are not at your beck and call.
And then…
VOILÀ! Problems at your doorstep.
Knowing that you need an egress, (some call it a bug-out plan) whether you are far from home or at your permanent residence, it is crucial to have not just one egress, but an egress to your next egress is how a person can sustain long-term. This is why it’s crucial to know how to live off the land, obtain water through coyote welling, then properly filter and disinfect it, learn how to fish for protein, kill a snake for food, etc. That isn’t end of the world fantasy, that is a bad day surviving the end days of Revelation. Most know the writings, very few have crafted even a rudimentary plan, nor given it any thought.
“This is why it’s crucial to know how to live off the land, obtain water through coyote welling, then properly filter and disinfect it, learn how to fish for protein, kill a snake for food, etc. That isn’t end of the world fantasy, that is a bad day surviving the end days of Revelation.”
SCENARIO: (MAXIMUM PRESSURE TEST)
It has been six days since you left home, and after the week you have had, you just want to get back to your house and hunker down to wait for the “event” to slowly burn itself out. Instead, on your last leg back to your home, you see military vehicles on the secondary highway traveling somewhat in the direction of where your family is. You immediately double-time it, and after cutting through an immense cornfield, you finally make it home.
A quick hug and kiss to your loved ones, and then tell them, “Grab the bags, we need to go now.”
Destination; a junkyard 3 miles to your North.
This has been your egress for years, and you know NO ONE is going to be checking out a junkyard in these conditions. As much as you would have liked to have prepared like Bill in “The Last of Us”, it just never worked out, so, you prepared the next best way you could. You plotted all cemeteries, junkyards, scrap metal yards, and landfills near your home to see where the best place you could bug out to in a situation like this.
NOTE: Although the scenario above is obviously fictitious, simply having locations like these near your home does not give you the right to trespass. If the owner is at their junkyard (or scrapyard, or cemetery) and you enter their property without permission, regardless of whether the world has gone to all Hades in a handbasket, uninvited guests could be dealt with swiftly—and without quarter. This is LITERALLY a last-ditch option when every other plan has failed, and you have nowhere else to take your family. The purpose of this scenario is not to encourage trespassing. It is to challenge you to identify unconventional locations, understand your local terrain, and develop multiple decision paths before Murphy gets a vote.
WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:
Although this is not an exhaustive list of things that you can do to prepare for building out an egress from your current location, it is a great starting point.
- First and foremost, know that time is a weapon. Whether it works for you or against you depends on your decisions. In a nutshell, if you plan or develop an egress, you will also want to set aside ample amount of time to train to get to your destination.
- Begin Google mapping your immediate surrounds and print maps of certain areas if you can.
- Look up your address and try to find your Longitude and Latitude coordinates.
- Once you have your longitude and latitude coordinates, you will want to order a detailed topographic map—typically 1:24,000 for USGS maps in the lower 48, or 1:25,000/1:50,000 where appropriate.
- Now, here is where you need to understand that map reading, especially a 1:50,000 or 1:25,000 scale topographic map is not as simple as reading a highway map.
- You will want to order a book such as Map Reading and Land Navigation, or view the free PDF HERE.
- You will want to order at least two protractors. (I could have superglued these things to my forehead when I was on active duty, and I STILL would have lost one out in the field as they are completely clear. Don’t drop it on the ground, you will most likely never find it again.)
- Invest in a great Lensatic Compass. (Buy once, cry once).
- Begin to understand the “When and Why” to bugging in and bugging out. Most people in preparedness build scenario plans, but you are better off developing a decision-making framework. Such as: Home – Egress – Egress to next Egress – New Egress, and so forth. Because preparedness is not measured by what you own or the skills you THINK you have. It is measured by your character and how you repeatedly respond under duress when real-world conditions are beyond your control.
- I tried to create a good visual with AI to show estimated timelines when things might begin to go off the rails, and the places to escape to / from during an event. It is better not to memorize exact timelines, and better to think about how demand shifts over hours, days and weeks as resources are consumed and priorities change.
CONCLUSION:
If we take the above scenario and apply it to any cataclysmic event, there will be some slow graduation of those types of needs and training you will have to deploy if you are far from home. Now, this all depends on geography, time of season, distance from your home, etc. But it is the SITUATION that will be fluid, and this is where you need to train yourself to be fluid as well.
I hear countless people online say they “have a plan.” Plans are easy. Reality is never that simple. Plans rarely survive first contact with Murphy. Decision-making frameworks do. I think it was Mike Tyson that once said, “everyone can have a plan, until I start punching them in the face”.
Your best laid plans can go south to Antarctica in a nano-second regardless of how perfect it is, because no matter what, if it can go wrong, it most likely will. Murphy’s law is the Mike Tyson of preparedness. Just be ready to duck and cover because most people cannot take a Murphy’s law punch to the turnip, especially if they have not prepared for it.
Stay fluid, keep training, keep the faith, and I wish you all the best in making your home egress plan!
Sgt. Silverman
DISCLAIMER:
I am not a licensed nutritionist, financial advisor, or medical doctor. The information in this article is for information purposes only and does not replace professional treatment, diagnosis, or advice. Always check with your physician or qualified healthcare provider with any medical questions, and never disregard professional medical advice based on something you read here.
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© 2026 Sgt. Silverman / Tertiary Prepper. All Rights Reserved.
This article and all original works published under the pseudonym Sgt. Silverman are the exclusive intellectual property of the author. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, republished, copied, or adapted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author or publisher.
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AI-Assisted Visuals & Examples
If you’ve been reading Tertiary Prepper for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed charts, graphs, calculations, and visuals that explain preparedness concepts in ways you don’t normally see discussed. Many of those examples were created with the assistance of artificial intelligence—but only after I gave it very specific instructions on what I wanted to teach.
I don’t use AI to create my preparedness philosophy. I use it to help visualize it.
Many of the tertiary preparedness concepts and applications discussed throughout this magazine—such as Sustainment Foraging, The Autonomous Recovery Kit (ARK), The Quiet Food Equation, my application of Pressure Testing to preparedness, and other frameworks I’ve developed—grew from my own ideas, observations, experiences, and ways of looking at preparedness. AI doesn’t create those concepts for me. I use it as a tool to help communicate and visualize them through charts, graphics, calculations, and examples that make complex ideas easier to understand.
Preparedness is rarely black and white. There are very few absolute right or wrong answers—only different experiences, different priorities, and different ways of solving the same problem. My hope is that these articles simply give us another reason to sit around the campfire, challenge conventional thinking, and ponder practical solutions together.
