One of the critical decisions anyone faces in any stressful situation is the decision between fight and flight. Do you stay put and deal with a situation, or do you flee and live to fight another day?
That same calculus occurs in survival scenarios too. In the event of an oncoming hurricane, do you hunker down and sit tight, waiting out the storm and protecting your home from looters, or do you retreat to a safer area and only return when electricity and other services are restored? In the event of a societal breakdown, do you try to stay safe at home and defend all your stuff, or do you bug out and take your chances outside the city? It can be a delicate balancing act.
A large part of the decision making process in such situations boils down to your level of preparedness, your risk appetite, and your ability to bug out. Not everyone has a 20-acre mountain bunker fully stocked with food, water, ammo, and generator. So for many people bugging in is the only choice they have. But if your house is destroyed, and illness or bad weather make staying in place untenable, you may have no choice but to bug out.
At Prepper’s Will, there’s a good article that discusses the pros and cons of staying put or bugging out, including bringing up many of the questions you’re going to have to ask yourself in order to make the right choice.
But as with anything survival or preparedness-related, these are questions you’re going to have to ask yourself well in advance, and questions to which you’re going to want to have responses planned ahead of time depending on your particular situation. Make contingency plans now based on your future answers to those questions, such that once a critical situation occurs, you’ll be able to act more or less automatically, without being paralyzed by the need to assess and analyze a situation.
The more you’re able to predict the possible scenarios you might face and plan possible responses, the better prepared you’ll be when disaster strikes.