Urban Survival: Workplace Safety and Egress Considerations

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground so as you can probably guess we've got some pretty big news today um today we are launching our youtube channel so this is something that a lot of people have been asking us to do for a long time um we have had a podcast for quite a few months now and it's been working out quite well but we understand that some people aren't really about the whole podcast format and don't necessarily like um like just listening to someone they're more visual learners so we thought that we would create a youtube channel that helped us host some of our more visual content so today we are launching that youtube channel with this with the topic of workplace safety more specifically how to egress from a building so if you're watching this on youtube you'll be able to see uh this this powerpoint that we created you know we're analysts so of course we had to revert back to a powerpoint for our first video but if you're listening to this to the audio of this on the um on the podcast we'll try to do our best to visualize what's going on on the screen but if you're listening to us on the podcast we highly recommend you go over and check us out on youtu best to visualize what's going on on the screen but if you're listening to us on the podcast we highly recommend you go over and check us out on youtube because then you'll be able to sort of understand what we're talking about we wanted to pick a topic you know that's once again a very visual thing that we can't exactly explain in a podcast format so workplace safety why are we talking about workplace safety um well for one this is sort of a topic we've been working around internally for a long time now because it's a topic that is not often talked about right it's very rarely mentioned in the military community it's very rarely mentioned in the prepping community it's really not even mentioned in a sort of taboo a lot of times to talk about within the emergency preparedness community because a lot of times the emergency preparedness community is based off of existing government guidance and as we'll find out that's not necessarily the best thing to resort to in a time of crisis like this so our goal here is to have a data-driven approach um we are going to tackle quite a few uh questions and problems we're not um going to try to theorize whether or not you should evacuate or or h roach um we are going to tackle quite a few uh questions and problems we're not um going to try to theorize whether or not you should evacuate or or how you should handle things in your own uh life mostly because we're not experts right so we're trying to create a process we're trying to examine things from an empirical standpoint and figure out how we can best point out things that you maybe haven't thought about yet basically this whole video is going to be about different considerations that you can go about right so you know as we stated you know this is not going to be a strictly a gearless video we're not going to list out a whole bunch of gear that you are going to need this is more of a considerations type video we will cover gear of course but we're not here to sell a product we don't get endorsed by anybody and for the most part that's going to be on you you're just going to be on you to figure out how to address the problems that we're going to lay out so once again like we said we're not experts not by any means but we do have some common sense right we're not able to perhaps contribute to producing a peer-reviewed scientific journal article on you know emergency escape have some common sense right we're not able to perhaps contribute to producing a peer-reviewed scientific journal article on you know emergency escape and and things like that but we are able to use some data right we don't have to be scientists to understand the scientific method and sort of loosely use that as a guide for how to be just be better about preparing for these types of things right so that's really our goal is to not necessarily use you know it would take years to go through a a scientific study of all emergency situations and and then dissect them all and then figure out what's going on with each one of them and then provide recommendations so we're sort of applying both some scientific knowledge and some historical knowledge as well as a lot of common sense and what we think works so that's why we're going to kind of weave back and forth between historical records and what we think so and this is why one of the big things that we've run into is that a lot of research you know hundreds and hundreds of of pages and and hundreds of journal articles have been written about even just minute emergency situations and disasters everything from terrorist attacks to hurricane undreds of journal articles have been written about even just minute emergency situations and disasters everything from terrorist attacks to hurricanes have been researched heavily in depth the response has been and the research has been conducted by experts as as it should right the research has been conducted by experts in the field and it's for experts so it's conducted four experts by experts um research has also been conducted by experts to help civilians chances of survival so you've got experts trying to determine what's best for a civilian to figure out uh their way and you know how can the lay person better understand a complex situation some such as some of these emergencies that have come upon us but very very little very little uh research has been conducted by individuals on an individual basis to help their individual chance of survival so that's what we kind of hope to tackle today we're laypersons when it comes to emergency management we do have a little bit of experience you know community emergency response teams cert teams you know so various medical training throughout the you know over the years as well as austere environment medicine so um we're not exactly um t teams you know so various medical training throughout the you know over the years as well as austere environment medicine so um we're not exactly um strict newbies but we're not experts in any way we cannot give a lot of the advice that has been given by experts on this so we're just going to take you through our thought process and sort of what we do now that of course is going to vary right so we're our goal with this is once again to trigger thoughts and considerations for you so one of the good ways to do this is the good old risk management matrix now i know a lot of you are probably going to be triggered by this graphic as well you should be because it's kind of a thing that gets annoying over time but it's a really good way for examining risk so for those that have not um sort of figured out what this is you can research it on your own time but in short it's a chart that describes the likelihood of an activity on a scale of one to five uh you know from rare to almost certain combined with the consequences or the impact of that thing happening such as once again on a one to five scale such as from insignificant up to catastrophic so let's put this into a format that we can t thing happening such as once again on a one to five scale such as from insignificant up to catastrophic so let's put this into a format that we can all kind of understand so this was our sort of risk management matrix um this is this one we created just for this video but this is similar to what our daily lives were like uh when we when we lived in the remote coastal pacific northwest area so we we lived there for a few years up in the [Music] washington state area and as you can see a few things were more prevalent than others for instance we can look at landslides for us in our specific area landslides had a medium impact but the likelihood that they would happen was very very high because we were in a remote area so as such the risk for a landslide happening would be high so when we when we understand that um when we put these sort of disaster scenarios and and um and circumstances on a chart like the risk management matrix we realize that things shift around a lot so depending on where you're at things could be a lot different such as when we move to the urban coastal mid-atlantic area so as you can see from the chart all of these things switched around a lot so suddenly land uch as when we move to the urban coastal mid-atlantic area so as you can see from the chart all of these things switched around a lot so suddenly landslides became a very low likelihood and also a low impact if they were to happen because we're not in a mountainous area and there's so many roads that it's almost it's extremely unlikely that any uh that our transit would be totally cut off whereas in the pacific northwest landslides could take out the only road going back to our house so um that's sort of what we are are focusing on now as you can see uh in the upper right hand corner of this chart the uh the thing that that we're sort of most concerned about now is uh civil unrest the likelihood that will happen in our specific area is very very high and the impact that it could have is very high so for us civil unrest at this point in time is an extreme risk now that's also uh leads into the point that over time these things change you know risk and the things you need to prepare for changes sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis right so like for instance you know two hours before the minneapolis riots kicked off two hours before those videotapes were released and just using m right so like for instance you know two hours before the minneapolis riots kicked off two hours before those videotapes were released and just using minneapolis as an example the threat of civil unrest was extremely low right but as soon as those videotapes were released and that night fight and that night fell on that same exact day things got really really bad so that goes to show that there's a lot of variables that go into how risk works and once you get kind of an understanding on that once you sort of start thinking in the terms of risk management right it it helps you prepare your response and of course we don't you know that's not to say that you should just memorize the earth's management chart and then just be a a government robot like a lot of us are taught to be when it comes to osha and things like that you know that shouldn't happen as well you should you know think sometimes things aren't going to be on the chart right and sometimes sometimes you need to prepare for things that exactly that don't exactly have a risk they can't you know be be categorized by a number or a color or a chart so that is you know the one caveat to the risk management matrix and so then we c y can't you know be be categorized by a number or a color or a chart so that is you know the one caveat to the risk management matrix and so then we come to this um this is of course an image that many people will be familiar with and this is the world trade center uh collapse so we're not going to get into the conspiracy theories or anything like that today we're just talking about the actual result the the actual uh result of the collapse and the reason that we're using the world trade center disaster as a good bench point for a lot of this is number one we have a lot of data we have so much data that it's almost impossible for one person to analyze over a period of time so the world trade center has been heavily studied by literally thousands of people from dozens of agencies and so we have a lot of understanding as to what went down when it comes to the actual impact of the planes the impact of the fires things like that so that's why we're using the world trade center as a good good jumping off point because a lot of the deaths that came from the world trade center by a lot of the reports that came out afterwards were definitely preventable so obviously the people that were li hat came from the world trade center by a lot of the reports that came out afterwards were definitely preventable so obviously the people that were living in the direct impact zone of the aircraft that was not a survivable situation but a lot of this a lot of the casualties that occurred we're not entirely sure how many right but we can say that the number of people that could have been saved but weren't is significant so um but you know once again we're not just prevented we're not just talking about you know 911 the absolute worst case scenario a complex multi multi-layered um covert attack on u.s soil that no one was expecting we're also talking about things like the grenfell tower fire of 14 june 2017 in the uk that was a simple a fire residential fire in an apartment building that started when a refrigerator caught fire but that fire spread very very quickly to the rest of the building almost immediately and it resulted in 72 deaths and only 223 people escaping now if you look at the ratio of deaths to escapees that's a very high number of people that died from this tower and the investigation is still ongoing because it turns out that a lot of the cladding on the side of the number of people that died from this tower and the investigation is still ongoing because it turns out that a lot of the cladding on the side of the building played a big impact on it and as you can see here um just a simple peruse of wikipedia can find out that uh a lot of other fires have been started a lot of them resulting in fatalities due to the exact same construction features the exact same uh violent safety violations that occurred in grenfell tower also started fires in other buildings around the world from you know south korea to new jersey the same the same construction technique and the same factors that led to the casualties in the grenfell tower are present around the world so that just goes to show that we're not necessarily planning for a complex multi-layered massive terrorist attack but we're also planning on something that's a little bit more likely even just just the other day one of our writers sent us a message saying hey look my refrigerator caught fire in my house i mean literally you know there was some kind of leak it was just sitting there in the kitchen and i was working at the kitchen table on a report i was writing and i turned around and i smelled s of leak it was just sitting there in the kitchen and i was working at the kitchen table on a report i was writing and i turned around and i smelled something like a you know like like rubber burning it turned around and there's smoke coming out from behind my refrigerator so these things can happen to you every day we don't necessarily are trying to say that 911 is something we should be prepared for every day we're also trying to prevent normal things like building fires so as one might expect this this video is really heavy uh on the fire and that's for a few reasons um we've become i suppose the word is slightly more paranoid after our local riots swept through our area and it's because of fire um so we can defend ourselves against you know armed invaders we can defend ourselves against you know people throwing rocks and bricks and stuff but one of the things that cannot be stopped by us alone is fire right so we're heavily reliant almost totally reliant on the fire department um to help us out with that and we as we saw in our local area and it was widely publicized in not just our area but also in minneapolis where it all started but also in new york atlanta california firefi cal area and it was widely publicized in not just our area but also in minneapolis where it all started but also in new york atlanta california firefighters being attacked with bricks and molotov cocktails because they were trying to put out fires and the rioters were trying to burn as many things to the ground as possible so for us fire is a huge deal and as a result we learn we learn a lot from firefighters themselves right firefighters are are extremely good sources of information because fires have been going on for quite literally millennia and as such the technologies and firefighting and the especially the personal escape procedures have trained have changed radically so as we see here in this image we have a firefighter that is practicing egressing from a window on an upper story building and that's where we're going to spend the bulk of our time talking about our system for that because one of the things that not a lot of people are talking about we haven't seen anyone talk about this within the sort of um prepping type emergency preparedness community with the exception of one source has mentioned it and we'll talk about that in a second but this is a thing that goes on i ency preparedness community with the exception of one source has mentioned it and we'll talk about that in a second but this is a thing that goes on in every fire department in america and it's firefighter egress systems basically this is a a rather large pouch that they put in the pocket of their turnout coat that basically allows them to within just a few seconds escape a room and rappel down to the ground from a window and it's something that's very interesting to study and worth looking into more so if you want more information about this i highly recommend you look up firefighter egress systems it is a very very fascinating subject to delve into even if you you're not a firefighter it's something that's very interesting to do if especially especially if you work or live in a building that's say two or three stories or even taller than that um which you know we do we live in air and work in buildings which are more than one story so it's something to keep in mind especially for that so so this is essentially what the goal is and this is a photo of a firefighter that's egressing from a structure that's on fire he was unable to egress out of the room any other way and he's forced his is a photo of a firefighter that's egressing from a structure that's on fire he was unable to egress out of the room any other way and he's forced to use his last resort which is to go out the window and we don't want to see the repeat of you know the very infamous people that have been videotaped and photographed jumping from high-rise buildings because the fire was just too much we don't want that we we want to have at least some last ditch it may not be survivable right as you'll see when we get into this the firefighter escape system and egress package that we've sort of created is not foolproof by any means it is not something that you train on unless you are in a very controlled environment it is a very very much a last-ditch method but it is infinitely better than simply just jumping out the window and hoping for the best so uh one of the big things that we're also thinking about that no one seems to be talking about are the covid procedures and mitigations so one of the big trends that's going around in literally every single profession is these coveted barriers so as we see here in this image this is a a gem that has become very famous for setting up individual worksta gle profession is these coveted barriers so as we see here in this image this is a a gem that has become very famous for setting up individual workstations uh workout stations that have you know they're basically just cubes of pvc tubing with plastic um set up all the way around them and to in order to for people to be able to work out without wearing a mask or something like that now on the face of this this may sound like a you know you can debate whether or not this is a good or bad thing however no one seems to be considering um that this is in fact a um very big fire risk um so let's just take this image here and let's darken it for a second so imagine that you're in a fire and of course the power is going to go out because the fire department the first thing they're going to do is cut power to the building so your lights are going to go out all right so it's going to get darker okay well now let's add in some smoke well you see how hard it is to be able to locate the doors and exits much less having to deal with you know multi-mill plastic that you can and plastic tubing that you can get entangled in so that's a big concern especially considering that our children are now bei ill plastic that you can and plastic tubing that you can get entangled in so that's a big concern especially considering that our children are now being affected by this so this photo shows a lot of the procedures that classrooms are taking now we could not find an actual photograph of our local elementary school and primary schools which have the actual full cages around the children but we do have this artist's rendition of you know the new procedures for basically doing the same thing with these little cubes and sort of cages put around each child's desk and the child goes inside the plastic barrier and they are able to you know do their schoolwork without a mask on well here's the thing um this this plastic sheeting is not easy to tear through with your bare hands like you need a knife to cut through it especially if you can't get a good purchase on it if you're in duress if you can't see if you're panicking if you're already tired and sleepy you know sleep deprived you're already fatigued from having to run down multiple you know stairwells it's not going to be easy to to to cut through a lot of this stuff and then we also see which this image shows um a lot of the a lot of gr stairwells it's not going to be easy to to to cut through a lot of this stuff and then we also see which this image shows um a lot of the a lot of grocery stores and a lot of workplaces and businesses are now barricading their doors right if you've gone to a grocery store in america or even you know canada or you know with our brothers across the pond um over in the uk or in europe chances are you go into a grocery store they're going to tell you to go in one way and exit one way and in this case in this image of walmart they've actually stacked carts up in front of one of the doors to prevent entry and exit from it you know so that you can only enter one way well what happens if that door becomes suddenly an emergency exit can people run through that barrier of carts no they can't right so you create a bottleneck at the door and that just leads to more fatalities so when we go to our grocery store and we look around and we see that they've you know they've actually moved a lot of the grocery store aisles to um cover up a lot of exits and allow and not allow freedom of movement within the store we think you know how is this not a fire hazard and um it turns out that fire departmen s and allow and not allow freedom of movement within the store we think you know how is this not a fire hazard and um it turns out that fire departments agree with us a lot of fire departments well i wouldn't say a lot of fire departments but several fire fire districts and fire commanders around the uh around the us have put out have put out social media posts citing that you have to make sure that you're still abiding by the fire code with all of these coveted procedures so this particular fire department put out a facebook page that said you know that says hey you know shower curtains guess what they're extremely flammable and prone to entrapping people so that's a that's a big concern for us right because this plastic sheeting is everywhere and here's the plastic sheeting that we're talking about a lot of this plastic sheeting is actually made can be bought at lowe's as you can see right here from the screenshot but you can also tell that it's made out of this little material called polyethylene and if we bring up our old magic google machine we can find a lot of different research that finds out that plastic sheeting made from polyethylene will burn big time when it hits by wh ogle machine we can find a lot of different research that finds out that plastic sheeting made from polyethylene will burn big time when it hits by when it's hit by flames so the polyester the polyethylene plastic sheeting that is used in a lot of places is extremely extremely flammable so you've got a lot of times with these covered procedures plastic sheeting it's an entrapment hazard that's also flammable oh and burning plastic also sticks to your skin and you're now creating a an entrapment hazard combined with another fire hazard so that's kind of a big concern for us that we haven't seen anybody talk about within the community so we just wanted to kind of share that and get you thinking about these things because it is a big concern right and another concern that we sort of can't ignore is um conflict right so this is um more addressed to those um workplace concerns and a lot of the things that we're drawing on for this particular bit is the a study that was done by the university of sussex entitled the mass psychology of disasters and emergency evacuations a research report and implications for practice it was written by and compiled by dr john drury and dr chris cocking of ers and emergency evacuations a research report and implications for practice it was written by and compiled by dr john drury and dr chris cocking of once again the department of psychology university of sussex and a lot of the data we recommend you go ahead and download this and read it i think it was written in 2007 so it's not the newest information done on this but it does show and it does bring up a lot of interesting points and one of the interesting points it brings up is how to better communicate with people during a disaster if you're the government agency that's responding to a disaster how to communicate with people in such a way that they'll believe you because as we can see here by this article one of the big concerns on 9 11 this article was written by the way i think two days after 9 11. one of the big concerns were people being extremely angry the survivors of it were being were angry after not immediately after 9 11 because the port authority uh told everyone to go back inside the building because we have to remember what actually happened during 9 11. one you know the world trade center uh when the first tower was hit there were a lot there was a lot of debris fal what actually happened during 9 11. one you know the world trade center uh when the first tower was hit there were a lot there was a lot of debris falling from that first tower so people were told to stay inside because it was the conventional wisdom was that even for a plain impact on the world trade center it was safer inside the building because people had already been killed that morning from falling debris and big shards of glass and and steel girders that were falling that were the size of vehicles so the port authority and a lot of the fire chiefs and a lot of the authorities that were responding to the initial aircraft impact were telling people to go back inside we have multiple multiple stories i'll just read this one right quick um but he told the observer that as he ran downstairs i heard people being told the building is secure the safest place is inside stay calm and do not leave that's what they were saying they were telling people to go back up to their offices and their desks like the building was not in danger right so that's just one story of many in fact here's another story this is more well known um this is the story of um stanley primeknith which i'm sure but so that's just one story of many in fact here's another story this is more well known um this is the story of um stanley primeknith which i'm sure butchering that name but um that's how i believe it's pronounced um and we'll just read that one right quick for those listening on the podcast that primeknit had initially evacuated the building after the first plane had hit the north tower but was told to go back inside once he had arrived back at his office on the 81st floor he was on the phone when he noticed the second plane coming right at him he screamed and jumped under his desk as the plane was hitting the building after the impact primenoth found himself alive under his desk with only minor injuries stanley primeknith was a hero that day because he helped a stranger get egress out of the building because after that happened he of course egressed and you can read his story on your own but the point is is that he was he was outside the building he was on the street right he was safe and they told him to go back inside and he made it up 81 floors while there was a major terrorist attack in progress because he didn't know any better right and he was a very very lucky man that day b up 81 floors while there was a major terrorist attack in progress because he didn't know any better right and he was a very very lucky man that day because the plane hit below him and he was able to egress down past it during through the one staircase that had not been completely destroyed so um just little things like this are things that we're trying to to help people to think about so and that sort of leads us to this point of you know thinking do i need to evacuate even though my boss and the police say not to and that's something that you're going to have to evaluate for yourself because as we all know despite what people write in reports and despite what people say on tv and and romanticize things afterwards um we do have to remember that not every employing agency abides by osha right they do not and even osha themselves don't enforce a lot of things that they should um i can remember quite a few i think every single job i've ever had you know outside the military inside the military there's been some kind of osha violation that was a serious safety hazard right and you couldn't report it because if you reported it they'd know it was you and if they knew it was you they'd m at was a serious safety hazard right and you couldn't report it because if you reported it they'd know it was you and if they knew it was you they'd make your life miserable so um that's something that you're gonna have to kind of figure out how to get around yourself uh we haven't really found a good way to do that we can certainly google ourselves and you know tell you guys to google like how do i confidentially report osha violations and things like that but really i think the the best method is to just be aware and to take measures uh if you're if you're working in a company or in an employing agency and you know that there's no way on earth you're going to be able to egress out of your building if something goes down i mean like for instance you think there's no way you're going to be able to talk your boss into being able to let you evacuate because oh that fire alarm's going off oh it's just a drill you know i can't tell you how many times i've heard that myself so um yeah it's it's a it's a big concern i can't tell you how many times i've had to stay inside a skiff while the building i was in was actually on fire only to have a fire axe come through my skiff door because th y times i've had to stay inside a skiff while the building i was in was actually on fire only to have a fire axe come through my skiff door because they were trying to get people out of there and hadn't realized that there were still three of us in the skiff because we were told to stay by the lieutenant commander navy lieutenant commander who had left himself so we realize these situations exist we're not going to ignore them and we're not going to sugarcoat them like a lot of these government reports will do but we do need to say that we don't have a good solution for you we just need you to to think about what you can do and if you're in that situation you're going to have to take a lot more preparations than what we're what we're going to recommend and what we're what we do so that's just something to consider another thing to consider is the longevity of of a disaster as we can see here in this image we have the the world trade center and um just how look how many floors were affected so that on the on the uh wtc2 the south tower the the impacted zone was from the 85th floor down to the 77th floor that's a lot that's a huge distance and likewise on the wtc one uh on the on the the the impacted zone was from the 85th floor down to the 77th floor that's a lot that's a huge distance and likewise on the wtc one uh on the on the north tower it was from the 99th floor down to the 93rd floor so that is a very long distance right even the systems that we have would not have saved us have we been above those above the impact zone but really what we wanted to call your attention to is at the bottom of the screen here um it the wtc 2 collapsed after 56 minutes and wtc one collapsed after 102 minutes so these are not immediate things uh a lot of the a lot of the casualties that um were injuries or the or the survivors or the people that basically were in the towers but made it out in some way um a lot of them were able to make it out because there was plenty of time we're talking at you know we're talking you know almost an hour for the shortest time you know in over an hour and a half for the other tower they had plenty of time to egress and get out of there so we just want to stress that you know what you know the the tower collapsed at minute 102 right so at minute 101 people were still in that tower debating well should i go down you know they're still stuck on he tower collapsed at minute 102 right so at minute 101 people were still in that tower debating well should i go down you know they're still stuck on like the third or fifth floor you know third or fourth or floor or they're still stuck up god forbid above it you know so up until the minute it collapsed no one thought that those towers would collapse so that's just something to remember as well is that yes you may have time but you don't know how much time you might have and we have this concept of complacency that happens over time for instance you know the longer a disaster goes on without a change in in severity um the more likely people are to become complacent so that that did happen a lot at the world trade center disaster because you know well it's been up in the you know it's been uh half an hour since the plane impacted it and the building's still going strong there's no reason to think it'll fall right that kind of mentality cost a lot of lives that day so that's something to keep in mind as well and you know once again this is kind of a schematic of of what the wtc one the actual visual evidence of fires these are the windows that you could see fire in from the ground a s is kind of a schematic of of what the wtc one the actual visual evidence of fires these are the windows that you could see fire in from the ground and from the air and as you can see this would have been very very very hard to survive had you been working or been located above the impact zone we can theorize about wtc all day long but the fact of the matter is is that even the systems that we have created for ourselves are not foolproof right it would be very very hard to do so and then likewise with wtc2 this one is a little bit different because this one of course it's always debatable but you can see the difference there's much much less fire in wtc2 and there was there was no visible fire on the west face so um that just shows you a a a difference between the two um and basically how even the same disaster can be very very different buildings which are have essentially the identical structure and they were hit with essentially the the the same attack can be very very different uh depending on just a few different factors so um and then moving on to you know this is the uh nist report nist report that was put out there have been hundreds of reports put out about 9 11 but one o nd then moving on to you know this is the uh nist report nist report that was put out there have been hundreds of reports put out about 9 11 but one of the big ones was one of the big takeaways that we got from this report at the time was the milling about right one of the things that hampered evacuation was um as it says here i'll just read it out for the podcast listeners that you know normal response to uncertain but urgent circumstances involving information seeking information exchange and observation basically that boils that uh boiled down that means that people knew something had happened but they didn't know how severe it was and they couldn't see anything right they knew there was a fire they knew that the people in the second tower knew that a plane had hit the first tower because that that was um very obvious from the very start but people in the towers it took them a little bit to find the information about what had exactly happened had a bomb going off as it happened before and they had trained for and things like that and then another concern is here on the slide this is preparatory behaviors gathering materials phone calls making phone calls computer backups and shu nd then another concern is here on the slide this is preparatory behaviors gathering materials phone calls making phone calls computer backups and shutdowns things like that basically people tidying up their desk and and closing things down for work just like they're going home for the day and that is a common theme among pretty much every disaster that hits a workplace people people report revert to habit people also don't have the the idea of i need to get out of dodge now and it's difficult to convey a sense of urgency plus we have to remember that uh that you know as it says here on the slide that no first responder interviewed by nist uh thought that the world trade center towers would collapse not a single first responder out of thousands of first responders that were there none of them thought the towers would collapse so that goes it goes to show you that your disaster might be a new one in the book right our disaster prevention guides and textbooks and all of our doctrine for emergency response whether it be something like the world trade center or something like a terrorist attack guess what all of that doctrine is based off of the last disaster it's based off of sometime e world trade center or something like a terrorist attack guess what all of that doctrine is based off of the last disaster it's based off of sometimes 10 20 30 year old logic and a lot of times that's not good enough in the case of the world trade center it was definitely not good enough um i think that you know this is not to of course this is not to demonize anyone or or or put down anyone who was there i you know we can talk all day long about how how awesome the response was and how you know i think that 9 11 was the most patriotic day that we can remember in u.s history but we do have to recognize that despite the fact that all of the first responders did the best they could and even did better than they should have considered the circumstances we've got to remember that it's not good enough we should always strive to be better and one of the big other takeaways here on the slide is it says in the upper right hand corner there was a quote from one of the survivors of tower 2 and the quote reads i was there during the 1993 bombing i did evacuate with a group of people who had no clue as to where we were going what i learned from that experience was to not trust the port author g i did evacuate with a group of people who had no clue as to where we were going what i learned from that experience was to not trust the port authorities announcements had i not experienced that i might have listened to the port authority announcement and stayed put right so throughout the disaster the port authority was you know putting out announcements that says hey stay here um they they frequently you know i think one of the first ones was for everyone to go to the 60th floor go back up inside the building to the 60th floor where there is a an emergency staging area and you know that that cost a lot of lives that day so one one must remember that yes this research that's done by experts is probably the best research we have because you know research is better than no research at all but you also have to remember that common sense dictates a lot of things and we can't arm share a quarterback the 911 incident but we can say that we can arm share a quarterback our own disasters during the time that they're going on we can certainly say hey they're telling me this i need to do this that's perfectly fine that's what we're encouraging to do but once again it requires a lot of a lo y say hey they're telling me this i need to do this that's perfectly fine that's what we're encouraging to do but once again it requires a lot of a lot of extra factors that we'll go over in a second so like i said this topic has has not really been touched on by a lot of people i think one of the the the good resources on youtube that's the more famous resource is the urban prepper i'm sure a lot of our uh listeners and and followers and people that are you know sort of in our network are aware of the urban prepper um the urban pepper you know is a guy who lives in pacific northwest um puts out a lot of videos on youtube and is you know an extreme um extremely organized he's well known for one his urban content right his urban you know bug out bags and uh disaster preparedness he's known for his little kids he's got i think he's got a kit for pretty much everything but he's also known for extreme organization so if you want to learn more we highly recommend you checking out the urban prepper by no means not a perfect resource but you know what it's got a lot of good information out there so if you're into that sort of thing that's a good resource to follow up on because we're cert know what it's got a lot of good information out there so if you're into that sort of thing that's a good resource to follow up on because we're certainly not experts in the field but you know he's got a lot of good points about things and i don't think any prepper is really an expert in the field i think that we're all doing the best we can because you know prepping and emergency preparedness and just having a generally good situational awareness and and thought process and plan that's not exactly that's not an exact science by any means right um so we're just trying to do the best we can and i think um you know this is one of the very few resources is actually talked about it um but unfortunately when we start going down the prepping road this is where we have to bring up prepping and immediately bash it is that prepping usually has a few stigmas associated with it which we'll talk about in a minute but one of the big things people get hung up on is the gear the gear the gear the gear we've done it ourselves i think i spent probably the better part of my boy scout days amassing a collection of military surplus gear and all kinds of things that are you know cool little gadgets an y the better part of my boy scout days amassing a collection of military surplus gear and all kinds of things that are you know cool little gadgets and knives oh my gosh i probably got you know 100 knives and a drawer somewhere in my house but yeah we tend to get hung up on the gear a lot of times and that's not necessarily what we're going for right sure there is an interesting matrix um i couldn't find it for this video but um there is a matrix i think it was sort of talked about first by dave canterbury and the the logic is is that the more knowledge you have the less gear you need with you likewise the less knowledge you have the more gear you need to make up for that lack of knowledge that's why um bushcrafting is such a big hobby amongst people because bushcrafting the idea right is of course you know self-reliance and things like that you know bushcraft type setups and you know you just google the term bushcraft you know camping or bushcraft hiking or just bushcraft in youtube and you'll find a bunch of people you'll know exactly what style it is you know and it's not about um taking you know highly complex gear into the woods it's about doing more with less now likewise con ly what style it is you know and it's not about um taking you know highly complex gear into the woods it's about doing more with less now likewise consequently we do have to have gear right there's no amount of knowledge that can save you from jumping out of a building there is no amount of knowledge that can protect you from breathing and fire right so we do have to have some gear but we also have to remember that it's not just about the gear and we ourselves have a hard time sometimes uh remembering that because we're definitely um definitely gear heads here we definitely like our gear and like our cool gadgets and you know as soon as our paycheck lands guess what it's probably getting spin on some camping gear or something or a gun part or something but but yeah it's just to remember that we don't want to fall into the trap of building kits right we don't want to fall into the trap of building bags right we want to get into the mindset of knowledge above everything else so that's where we're going to start if you want to start with the whole line system kind of going back to the urban prepper i'm not sure if he's the one who invented it but he definitely talks about a lot of his the whole line system kind of going back to the urban prepper i'm not sure if he's the one who invented it but he definitely talks about a lot of his earlier videos and it's become basically a lot of doctrine nowadays of different lines right you know line one being the things you have the gear and the things you have in your pockets and on your person line two is you know like on your your your play carrier your chest rig or whatnot and line three is like your backpack right and you go on from there but we're going to start here we're going to use that as a rough guide right but we're going to start with line zero and that's the stuff that's inside your head right um and one of the big things if we're if we're going along with you know the fire theme here we're very heavy on fire this uh this particular episode because it's such a big concern for us just knowing where your fire exits are you know how many people just think to yourself right now you work in an office if you work in an office your office is required to have a fire evacuation plan okay well are do you know where that is do you know where that placard is on the wall because it's required to be posted do you have a pi cuation plan okay well are do you know where that is do you know where that placard is on the wall because it's required to be posted do you have a picture of that evacuation plan on your phone that you can show to a firefighter and tell them hey my co-worker the last time i saw them was here do you have that and if not you probably should take steps to correct that likewise when you stay in a hotel how many of you take a picture of the fire evacuation map when you get into your hotel because a lot of times you know hotels at least in the united states are required to have the evacuation map like on the back of the door or something like that but i've stayed in many many hotels in southeast asia that don't have that at all so that's something to keep in mind as well you know either the placard is gone or it's just a bad hotel and you know trust me these things tend to compound right so if your hotel is not following the code by posting your evacuation plan from your room to the emergency exit chances are they probably skimped on some of the other fire protection methods as well so that is once again something to keep in mind so another thing is know where your first aid slash fire of the other fire protection methods as well so that is once again something to keep in mind so another thing is know where your first aid slash fire equipment is at we're not talking about strictly fire things nowadays because in a lot of workplaces and a lot of public places a big concern nowadays is active shooting or some kind of altercation or or something involving a gunshot wound so a lot of places a lot of workplaces are implementing these bleeding control kits as we see here in an image um and a lot of people they're new right so everyone you know pretty much everybody can roughly guess where their fire extinguisher is but then do they know where the bleeding control kit is for their workplace something once again to think about another thing to think about is um do i the status and the exact layout of your offices workplaces the place you spend your time that's not your home what is the sprinkler situation is there do you have a sprinkler do you have stand pipes outside that the fire department can hook up to do you have automatic sprinklers do you have no sprinklers at all but you do have reliable alarms something to you know be very considerate of because a lot of this omatic sprinklers do you have no sprinklers at all but you do have reliable alarms something to you know be very considerate of because a lot of this stuff matters and then another thing to be considered about to think about is not necessarily fire but also flooding right so this here is a map of a flood area not a whole lot of people know and you can google this yourself but fema has a flooding map that you can actually type your address in and find your workplace and it will tell you whether or not your workplace is in a flood zone and news flash pretty much every building on earth is in a flood zone the question is what has to flood first so for instance our work center is not so much a huge risk for flooding but um considering it's it's like a hundred feet above sea level i think so basically if our office building gets flooded and in our house is even higher than that so um if our workplace or our or if our house gets flooded um basically the whole east coast is gonna be under water right it's gonna be an apocalyptic scenario right so this is not something you can exactly prepare for however the route that i have to drive from my house to my office is under sea level it is def ht so this is not something you can exactly prepare for however the route that i have to drive from my house to my office is under sea level it is def it definitely goes right through a flood zone and there is no way i can get back to my house from my place of work if there if a flood happens because literally my house sits on uh my little geographic area the the general area which i live in is in a um area it's in a uh on a hill same thing with my office and though basically if there's a flood in my area guess what my office will be an island my house will be an island i can't get to one of the other if there's a flood so that you know that prior knowledge that prior research can save you a lot of time and uh it is something to consider so for instance if if you know if i'm at work can i get a notification that says hey heavy rain is expected within the next few hours and i just research it more and find out oh dear there's a flood warning for you know for a flood watch on until like 9 00 pm tonight guess what i'm going to pull chalks i'm going to leave work and go home early if i can and that will allow me to make sure that i'm at least at my place of place of residence before th s i'm going to leave work and go home early if i can and that will allow me to make sure that i'm at least at my place of place of residence before the flooding starts now if you don't have that flexibility if you have to stay at work basically until your building catches fire and then even then a few minutes afterwards to tidy the place up a bit if you live in and work in that type of environment we've been there with you trust me i i feel for you but you're gonna have to have a lot of you're gonna have to be have the capability of staying at your work or staying nearby the places you can walk to if you can't make it back to your house um and and this kind of you know to ending on the knowledge note we wanted to bring up kind of an interesting facet of of you know practicing with your gear right um it's become sort of white well not so widely known but widely known throughout the the um commercial survival uh industry that um we have the case study here brought up that the you know the famous uh captain sully landing on the hudson you know u.s airways flight 1549 um there were 150 people on board right they were landing in the water so basically that safety brief right that you ge u know u.s airways flight 1549 um there were 150 people on board right they were landing in the water so basically that safety brief right that you get when you fly like people who have never flown before had never set foot on an airplane but have seen that in movies they've heard comedians talk about it they've seen it in popular culture like somebody it's so pervasive throughout society and so taken advantage of by comedians in the late 80s early 90s that everybody knows what generally what the safety brief is when you get on an airplane even people have never flown before but despite this there were 150 people on board that air aircraft only 33 of those people managed to take their life vests with them after the plane had come to a stop and they had begun evacuation procedures and of those 33 only four people were wearing their life jacket correctly so despite the fact that they had been lectured on this literally less than half an hour before right because the the incident took took place after takeoff it was immediately after the safety brief and they still failed to do it only four people out of 150 were able to take that knowledge understand it know where the life jacket is safety brief and they still failed to do it only four people out of 150 were able to take that knowledge understand it know where the life jacket is and be able to put that into use during an actual no kidding textbook survival scenario right so if you cannot do that if you cannot fall back on your knowledge right because we remember we fall back on the most basic level of knowledge right and for a lot of people grabbing their life jacket when they get off the airplane that's not uh base level base levels just get off the aircraft that's their highest level of training so we have to remember that training training training is the key here you have to remember that even though you know something even though you've read something when a disaster goes down you might not be able to put it into practice so that's sort of um a very very important topic that we cannot emphasize enough but moving on to line one this is the stuff you're wearing and carrying on your person now the first thing we have pop up here is a cobra belt with a cobra riggers belt with a d-ring attachment this is kind of essential right if if you work in a job where you're able to wear a web belt i.e in the military y ggers belt with a d-ring attachment this is kind of essential right if if you work in a job where you're able to wear a web belt i.e in the military you better do so because this type of thing is pretty much mandatory if you don't have this you're not you're not going to be able to get very far now likewise if you have a job where you can't wear a belt like that you can also get which is what just popped up on the screen here one of these um simple bdu utility belts that cost about five bucks you can get them and they usually come in one size you just cut it to length and it rolls up extremely tightly and you could just put it in your bag and not worry about it and it will work just fine of course it doesn't have the d-ring loop and of course it takes a few uh extra seconds to don vice a belt you're already wearing but it will do in a pinch right so that's something that we're going to be relying on heavily here in a second up next is the pants you're wearing right or the clothes you're wearing so not a whole lot of people are um take advantage of the things they have and as you can see here in this pair of pants i'm sorry for our podcast listeners it's kind of hard to to illustrat advantage of the things they have and as you can see here in this pair of pants i'm sorry for our podcast listeners it's kind of hard to to illustrate but um uh these dotted lines going from the waist belt all the way down to almost the end of the ankle that's how we have rigged up a small short strand of paracord so you can take a paracord and you can loop it around your belt and then feed it down inside your pant leg so that it's almost reaching the floor and you can actually double it up and get upwards of 15 20 25 feet down your pant leg and it's practically unnoticeable for the military guys out there and for some of the civilians who who wear shirt stays that's um this is nothing compared to shirt stays just having a strand of paracord or a couple of strands doubled up down your leg it's not noticeable by anyone and you'll always have paracord right there untangled quick access whenever you need it and the paracord that we recommend is not just any paracord um over the years paracord has sort of evolved and now we have kevlar paracord that's right we have 900 degree fahrenheit fire resistant paracord that can hold um hundreds and hundreds of pounds more under heat than norma aracord that's right we have 900 degree fahrenheit fire resistant paracord that can hold um hundreds and hundreds of pounds more under heat than normal paracord can so this is the sort of thing that we are are looking for in an absolute absolute last ditch scenario like if you're going to give me a choice between jumping out of a you know multi-story building and just hoping i hit the ground in such a way that i don't die and being able to quickly sling a short piece of paracord probably will break but you don't know right stronger than the average paracord and then looping that around something and then jumping out or you know softly lowering myself out i'll take my chances with the paracord first you know so obviously this you know brings up a lot of you know concerns because we've we've heavily researched propelling off of thin lines before and the bottom line up front with that is don't do it um it you're probably gonna die but i will take probably going to die over definitely will die any day of the week so it it's very very cheap to buy it's unnoticeable and it's just always there with you when you know if you know god forbid you needed it likewise another thing that would be p to buy it's unnoticeable and it's just always there with you when you know if you know god forbid you needed it likewise another thing that would be very very handy to have is some sort of pocket knife on you right and you know it can be a folding knife like the one pictured here it can be a rescue knife like the one pictured here i'm not sure which one this is i do have this exact knife but i can't remember the name of it but the case in point is it doesn't really matter what kind of knife it is you can get everything something as expensive as a benchmade or something as cheap as this kershaw this one in particular i personally like it because it has a rescue cutter built into it so that you can cut webbing and cut rope without having to open the knife blade so that's a good safety feature if you're looking into that sort of thing also we need to remind need to remember that a knife such as this one the one picture here having a bright orange rescue handle um is a lot of times less threatening than a normal tactical type knife right so we're kind of you know we're you know we're aware and we've got a probably got five or six of those you know crkt flipper tactical type knives th t so we're kind of you know we're you know we're aware and we've got a probably got five or six of those you know crkt flipper tactical type knives that kind of flick out really quick or even you know assisted opening or spring assisted or or even out the front knives you know things like that chances are if you work in a place where you have to go through a metal detector and you've got this pocket knife in and you forget it's there we've we've actually had a lot of chance a lot of cases where you know people you know say oh what's that oh yeah oh i'm sorry i've got a pocket knife so i totally forgot i had it on me and you pull it out and it's this orange handled rescue knife um you have a better chance of of the security guard saying ah don't worry about it just you know remember next time than not so there have been a couple of chances where i've you know been in um on you know at work um going to a hospital or a medical facility where you have to go through a metal detector and i've you know had you know forgot that i had a pocket knife in my pocket and uh it was this orange rescue knife and you know you get hassled a little bit of course but i was able to talk my way through a knife in my pocket and uh it was this orange rescue knife and you know you get hassled a little bit of course but i was able to talk my way through anyway and keep it whereas if i'd had my you know sick looking tactic cool you know definitely meant to kill someone type flipper knife that would have gotten confiscated so that's something to keep in mind we'll talk about that more in just a bit but something that's always able to get through these things is what we have here which is one of those rescue me little glass breaker tool things and this is very essential as well because being able to break glass is a capability that you absolutely need to have you might have trouble getting it through tsa and through a metal detector but chances are if it's on your key ring and you put it through a metal detector nobody really cares i've taken this on planes before probably should not have been able to but tsa didn't give it a second thought and yeah it's uh just a glass breaker with you know the rescue me things even have a little seat belt cutter in them as well but yeah this is something you definitely need to have on your person on your key ring it's it's it's a mandatory thing uh to cutter in them as well but yeah this is something you definitely need to have on your person on your key ring it's it's it's a mandatory thing uh to have some sort of glass breaker and if you wanted to have something a little bit more covert they do make um ones which uh which unscrew and you can which are sort of like a little uh a keychain pen um but you unscrew the pen and flip it around and it's got a glass breaker on the back side of it so um you'll have to research those they're a dime a dozen there there's a bunch of them on the internet but it's it's worth looking into because it's pretty cool concept and it's a little bit more covert if you know what i mean so another thing that you're going to need to have on you at all times is this is just as essential as the belt and this is a locking carabiner you can't do any of the things we're about to talk about without it sure you can do it in a text for sure you can repel without a carabiner or without a belt using the rope alone from a textbook but unless you've actually done it under duress with a small diameter rope then then you realize that it's not possible so you really need a locking carabiner and then finally something under duress with a small diameter rope then then you realize that it's not possible so you really need a locking carabiner and then finally something that that everybody needs to have um regardless of what you do where you work or anything is a small little keychain flashlight this particular one looks like it's a phoenix e05 it doesn't matter what it is but these small little one aaa flashlights have gotten extremely cheap and extremely powerful over the years you can even get ones that have little clips that you can clip them to your hat or your shirt collar and that way you can have hands free light but i can tell you that an emergency situation the number one thing that's going to go out before anything else is the power so you need to have the ability to see um and also you know you can signal with it you can do so many things with light and it's cheap and it's weightless and you can carry it everywhere so that's something that you need to do so then moving on to our sort of firefighter escape system now now this photograph here is a picture of a commercial one that you can buy it's meant for firefighters and as you can see there's a few different components we have the rescu is a picture of a commercial one that you can buy it's meant for firefighters and as you can see there's a few different components we have the rescue hook looks like a cmc flash hook version 2. that part is meant to hook on to you know door frames window ledges things like that to be able to egress out of them you can look this up on your own i'm not going to go into depth about the firefighter egress system because there's a few alternatives here this actual system the one you're looking at right now is several hundred dollars right we're talking about you could either buy a glock or buy one of these and so a lot of people don't have that kind of money and you know we don't either so we substitute uh the descent control device um or the repel device or the belay device whatever you want to call it depending on what profession you're in we substitute that with a small mini figure eight rescue rescue eight um we couldn't find the actual picture of the one we have but this one's pretty close so it's a small a smaller one it's meant for belaying repelling um if if you have any experience climbing this will you'll know exactly what this is but if you don't i'm sorry you're going to h r belaying repelling um if if you have any experience climbing this will you'll know exactly what this is but if you don't i'm sorry you're going to have to look this up on your own time but that's absolutely needed so if you don't have the money to get one of those fancy automated descent control devices you're going to need some kind of figure eight likewise we also add in a pulley to ours a rescue pulley just because you know we've done a lot of you know alpine rescue courses and whatnot and sort of realize the value of having a pulley or two on us and they're very small and lightweight likewise prusik loops as you see pop-up prusik loops are absolutely essential you can make them yourself out of that extremely highly durable kevlar paracord it's a little thin honestly but you got to remember this escape rope is a lot thinner than your normal climbing rope right so it's going to behave a lot differently and you're going to need a lot more friction to slow down so you really have to test the system out in a very very safe and controlled method before you do something like this likewise also just what you know we have popped up here uh these are i think they're made by arcturics u lled method before you do something like this likewise also just what you know we have popped up here uh these are i think they're made by arcturics um but they are the lower half the leg loops of um that allow you to turn any uh cobra belt any uh riggers belt into a full on climbing harness that's actually rated for fall absorption or for descent i forget the term i'm kicking myself for forgetting the term but arrest prevention i think is what it's called depending on what profession you're in basically if you fall out of a helicopter and you've got this harness on it's going to stop you from falling and not break so these leg loops are compressed really really tiny like they fold up into the size of maybe a half a pack of cigarettes and you can slip them into the system very very easily into an exterior pocket so another thing we add in is of course the belt to go with it because what if we're wearing a suit and tie if we're wearing a tuxedo right worst-case scenario we're not going to be able to wear a rigger's belt so we throw in a small compact bdu belt doesn't have a belay loop on it but you can still rig it up like that it's not the best but it's better than nothing at all a a small compact bdu belt doesn't have a belay loop on it but you can still rig it up like that it's not the best but it's better than nothing at all and it will it will work we've tested it dozens if not hundreds of times and it does work so it's just less convenient and you have to be careful about um going inverted right so another thing we add into this system is as a set of gloves maintaining the skin on your hands is very very important not just for being able to survive but being able to thrive right if you want to be an asset to the people around you not a liability and if you are unable to keep the skin on your hands because the rope got away from you or you cut your hands or something like that your liability you're not an asset so a small compact set of gloves go in this kit as well and these gloves are special these gloves are leather gloves but they're lined with kevlar so i can reach up to a broken piece of glass and just put my weight on it and it it'll cut through the leather but it will not cut through the kevlar and that's crucial so they cost about 30 bucks no more than your normal shooting gloves and it's it's pretty much mandatory if you don't have some of these hat's crucial so they cost about 30 bucks no more than your normal shooting gloves and it's it's pretty much mandatory if you don't have some of these i highly recommend you get a few pair for things not just not just these emergency things but other things as well they're very handy to have and another thing we add in is a very very small compact set of goggles or some kind of eyewear we prefer these goggles mostly because we got them for free uh through work but uh this particular set of goggles i can't remember who they're made by i think they're made by revision revision make some basically their goggles that are meant to to be worn um for conducting airborne operations and and jumping uh with your night vision goggles on and down so they allow you that the clearance is very they're very very close to your face they allow you to flip your nods down and actually be able to see through them but also retain your some kind of you know safety for your eyes so they fold down to almost nothing i can curl them around in the corner of the bag and they're perfectly fine and speaking of the bag uh one of the we don't um we of course did this system sort of piecemeal or at least i did my s bag and they're perfectly fine and speaking of the bag uh one of the we don't um we of course did this system sort of piecemeal or at least i did my system piecemeal a couple people bought the full firefighter rigs but me uh i've over the years sort of gravitated towards these particular i think they're from kieferu yeah kifuru possibles pouches and they have one big compartment you can stuff your rope in and stuff your your hook and your descent device all rigged up in and then the side pouches can be used for all this other gear so i think they're very very handy and most importantly they're non-threatening so if you've got this pouch stuffed down into your backpack right or if even better you take it out of your backpack and just leave it at work like under your desk it's not threatening it's not tactical it doesn't look like something that's extremely valuable which all of this gear is very very expensive but it doesn't look like it from the bag and most importantly it's a unique bag that i don't use for anything else so i know exactly what the bag looks like and i can grab it quickly likewise if you don't want to invest in that type of system there's a company out there called actly what the bag looks like and i can grab it quickly likewise if you don't want to invest in that type of system there's a company out there called scotty vest they've been making garments for a long time they started with what they the product they call the scotty vest and basically it's one of those um you know classic dad vests um but instead of it has like 30 pockets in it right on the inside it's very very covert you could store an entire suitcase worth of stuff in it and the way they have the pockets laid out is it lays very very flat against your body i i even tested it one day i had probably 18 pounds of gear in my scotty vest and it looked like i just was a little bit overweight but i had so much gear inside i mean i could survive for weeks on just what i had in my pockets alone so if you were to put this escape system and some of this other gear that we're going to mention in a scottie vest and just like hang it on your door hanging on the back of your chair that would be cool too that way you can at least put it on and you know if if you're forced to egress from your office but they say you know no bags leave your bags behind because that will happen a lot of times yo ou know if if you're forced to egress from your office but they say you know no bags leave your bags behind because that will happen a lot of times you don't want bags in a you know stairwell occupied space and things nobody's going to tell you to take off a vest because it's so close to your body so then you'll have your egress stuff with you at all times likewise as we can see right here in this image even matthew mcconaughey knows the value of the always cool and popular fanny pack that's right you guys know it the fanny pack is back or some of us would like to say it never left so um as many people know it's now become a very fashionable thing to do especially in the military deployed is to have a fanny pack which you can carry things like um you know food snacks whatever extra ammo even sometimes your sidearm if you're going low profile but yeah fanny packs are cool always have been always will be just a personal opinion but yeah if you wanted to turn this thing and put this into a fanny pack guess what nobody would know and then that way you could literally be able to escape from any building you enter so that's just something to you know food for thought something to conside that way you could literally be able to escape from any building you enter so that's just something to you know food for thought something to consider so sort of catch phrases you know just something to consider but but yeah so that's our sort of firefighter escape system and that's how we have it laid out and you know once again you can research each one of these uh bits of gear and this whole system and sort of figure out what works for you um but some of the other considerations you might want to think about when it comes to fire is you know am i one of the big things and i know that if there are some firefighters out there that are saying you know hold up hey hang on a second we're trained to use our egress systems very very well they only work in certain circumstances and they're very dangerous to do we know that as a matter of fact one of the biggest concerns for using a firefighter egress system is drawing the fire to you so i highly suggest looking this up on your own and doing some research but basically here's the here's the the short version i'm going to draw here with my little cursor basically this imagine this window here in this image of the firefighter rolling out e the short version i'm going to draw here with my little cursor basically this imagine this window here in this image of the firefighter rolling out the window this window was closed beforehand and in just a matter of seconds as soon as you crack that window as soon as you break that seal and as soon as that window gets pushed out or kicked out or whatnot guess what you just created a flow an airflow area so that fire is guess what now it has oxygen to breathe and that fire is going to come to you so basically if you're going to breach a window and repel out of it with a firefighter egress system you're going to have to have that system rigged up and ready to go and you better be the only one in the room when you do it we're not um and that's kind of a consideration for later we're going to talk about later but like look this is for absolute worst case scenario fend for yourself you can't help anyone you can only egress and save your own life that's the only time i would do that any case of course if there's a fire in my building i'm going to take the fire escape right if i have time but if i find myself in the room that's on fire if a bomb goes off in the office next door and i c going to take the fire escape right if i have time but if i find myself in the room that's on fire if a bomb goes off in the office next door and i can't get to the stairwell guess what i'm going to do i'm going to go out my window so and i want the capability to do that i don't want to be trapped and be an ad and be a liability i don't want to be a victim that a firefighter has to save when i can save myself and he can save someone who can't save themself right so that's something to consider is that it's very very dangerous during a fire to crack a window or to open a window because you have lit quite literally just a few seconds to get out that window before it's a total raging inferno so that's food for thought once again something to consider and along those lines there's a new sort of new genre of products coming out on the market which is very interesting they so they came about i think from the same company that created the breach pen that people have probably seen before the the sort of road flare looking device uh that uh you you're able to light and basically it's a it's a it's a device to allow you to to cut through um different materials even weld certain materials in ou you're able to light and basically it's a it's a it's a device to allow you to to cut through um different materials even weld certain materials in certain circumstances um the same company that made those also made uh these sort of they call them tactical fire suppression devices basically this little mini fire extinguisher and they even make them as small as a can of pepper spray so the one that we have on the screen here is made by blaze defense systems that's the mk4 the mark iv it is a fire extinguisher that's literally in the exact same canister as a four ounce um container of pepper spray and mace so yeah that that's pretty cool um so if you are able to have one of these devices on you now obviously if you work in an office it's gonna be it's in the same container as pepper spray right so people are gonna think it's pepper spray right so you're probably not you're not gonna be able to take this on an airplane you're gonna be able to take it past the metal detector because people are gonna be like that looks like pepper spray and you don't have time to sit there and argue for five minutes 15 minutes about oh no it's just a fire extinguisher well why do you need a fire exti and you don't have time to sit there and argue for five minutes 15 minutes about oh no it's just a fire extinguisher well why do you need a fire extinguisher you're trying to start a fire you know you see how that goes so um this is really for people who are able to do it and these things are pretty cheap i think the smallest one is like 15 bucks and you know so a little bit more expensive than than than an actual canister pepper spray but it's kind of a unique product and if it fits within your needs i think it might be an interesting product for you they make them in all different kinds of sizes though so you can research that further we just wanted to bring it to your attention and then another product that has been around for probably longer than the actual fire extinguisher itself is the concept of the fire blanket now these you can buy there's thousands of people selling these on amazon and they're extremely cheap they're anyway they're anywhere from five to ten bucks a piece these are fire blankets basically all they are is sheets of fiberglass fiberglass blankets that are sewn together and you can use to smother out a fire now if you're in an office or something like that eets of fiberglass fiberglass blankets that are sewn together and you can use to smother out a fire now if you're in an office or something like that having a fire blanket on you would be a lot easier than having this canister of fire extinguisher right um not only because the fire extinguisher canister is really just for putting yourself out if you're on fire because honestly like you're not going to be able to put out a room or anything you're going to put out a small small maybe even just like a small wastebasket fire with one of these fire suppression devices but if you have a fire blanket you could probably do a little bit more and also if you take this fire blanket out of its um sort of obvious packaging and you just fold it up and stick it in like the laptop sleeve of your backpack nobody cares you can take it anywhere you take it on a plane nobody will notice and nobody will care they just think it's like a blanket folded up but you know it's a fire blanket so that's kind of a cool thing cool concept that might be worth looking into and another thing to consider is the fact that a lot of people can't quite get over is you're probably going to get hurt you're going to get hu g into and another thing to consider is the fact that a lot of people can't quite get over is you're probably going to get hurt you're going to get hurt probably pretty badly when it comes to bailing out of a fire situation and you need to be able to fix that so a lot of people are we'll talk about a couple of different solutions in a minute but don't think that this stuff is going to result in you being totally unscathed you're going to get hurt pretty badly chances are so having some you know a a small little tube of burn ointment in your wallet would be handy because you got to remember that um ems and the medical people are going to be overwhelmed during a situation that is severe enough for you to warrant bailing out of a window and you want to of course be the you know if you're injured you're injured like you're going to have to rely on medical services there but you also want to be the least amount of liability as possible right that's all what it's all about so another sort of thing that we haven't seen anybody talk about at all is breathing in a fire type situation so obviously everybody knows even small children can tell you that it's not the fire that gets you it's the all is breathing in a fire type situation so obviously everybody knows even small children can tell you that it's not the fire that gets you it's the smoke or it's not the fire they get you but it's the carbon monoxide so um for those that haven't for those that can't see it listening on the podcast the vk 450 filters it's a standard 40 millimeter filter and if you've already got a gas mask in your office like we do i'm just sort of sitting there guess what you could turn this bad boy in and that's an option it will filter out carbon monoxide it will work in as little as 19 oxygen it doesn't supply oxygen so it's not a perfect scenario and honestly i'm not entirely sure if i would want to be in a fire environment wearing a plastic and rubber thing around my face and head just because i'm not entirely certain that any of that stuff is fireproof right it might stick and burn to my face and i don't want to end up looking like you know two-faced from batman after this whole thing's over so but i didn't want to mention it because we have much better options one of the other more vastly more expensive options is simply a small air tank anybody who's a pilot has seen these before these ar uch better options one of the other more vastly more expensive options is simply a small air tank anybody who's a pilot has seen these before these are the heat devices helicopter emergency egress device i think they go by a different name now i think our apache pilots call them p hod system essentially it's a very small tank of air and you are able to breathe clean uh oxygen out of it it's like a mini scuba tank um you can breathe cleaner out of it anywhere from five to ten minutes depending on the size you get and that would be a completely foolproof thing to do now of course having a big tank in your mouth as you're trying to go downstairs you know it's not it's smaller than a water bottle but it's um smaller than like an algae water bottle but it's not easy at all and i can't imagine trying to go through a fire with this sort of thing on because it's pretty heavy also you look very suspicious carrying it on an aircraft so it's probably very hard to do which is why the next thing we have is this this is the air care smoke escape hood now for those that google that term we highly recommend you do google that term the air care smoke escape hood there's really only one american com od now for those that google that term we highly recommend you do google that term the air care smoke escape hood there's really only one american company making these and i'm fairly certain they're made in china anyway if you see the picture that we have here you can see uh you google that term or google smoke escape and you'll see a bunch of devices that are very very similar to this if not like identical copies there's another company called hk i think probably for hong kong that makes these exact devices but basically it's a small smoke hood it's a plastic bag that's made out of a high heat resistant plastic and you put it over your head and it's got a rubber seal on the bottom and a filter in front of your face idea being you breathe through the filter and your eyes are also protected from the smoke as well so you can see now obviously these devices are pretty much garbage but they are not totally worthless um they're not cheap but you can find them on ebay sometimes for as little as 10 to 15 bucks and if they drop down that that low i usually buy one or two because i've tested these before some of the other guys here at the shop have tested them before too and they're not per low i usually buy one or two because i've tested these before some of the other guys here at the shop have tested them before too and they're not perfect but they're better than nothing i think honestly the biggest thing these things do is keep smoke out of your eyes which is and keep you from breathing in so much of the smoke it does not filter out carbon monoxide i don't believe and you know things like that but it does help some and most importantly um this device you can fold up it folds up to the size maybe the size of you know five by seven um and maybe half an inch thick so you can literally take it anywhere you take it past any there it's non-metallic so you can put it you take it past any metal detector you can take it on any commercial airline and usually if i'm flying commercial i'll have this right in my backpack and when i get on when i get on board i'll take it out of my backpack and sort of tuck it in my shirt or in my jacket so it's right there if i need it and that just adds another layer of safety and concern and not concerned but sort of capability for me that way i want to be you know an asset not a liability because guess what like you sure oxygen tanks on air t concerned but sort of capability for me that way i want to be you know an asset not a liability because guess what like you sure oxygen tanks on aircraft exist right they they're gonna you know everybody is knows that you know oxygen mass those you know yellow cups fall from the ceiling you put one on before assisting others right i can almost quote the safety brief right but what happens when the plane's on fire on the ground how do you get out and as we remember a lot of fatalities do occur because people sat in their seats with you know the oxygen tanks running that weren't actually pumping oxygen so i would much rather if i'm going to have to egress in the aircraft pop this bad boy out take two seconds flick it open put it on my head and then egress that way i can help people get out and that way i can stay on board for longer helping get people out so once again coming back to the theme of being an asset not a liability and then sort of to go along with this this image i'm sure a lot of people especially our air force cats out there they'll know what this is the eposc emergency passenger oxygen system this bad boy is very very similar to what we mentioned before the air care there they'll know what this is the eposc emergency passenger oxygen system this bad boy is very very similar to what we mentioned before the air care smoke escape hood um with one big difference the epos provides oxygen it has a small oxygen tank so when you open it up and you pull it open and you pull the pen and put it over your head it goes on your head sort of like this the image kind of shows how it inflates around you it has a co2 scrubbing ability in it as well like co2 absorbing material around the collar but it also inflates so that you have a complete and total oxygen environment you can actually wear one of these for upwards of an hour that's how much oxygen it provides and of course the plastic as you can see is the same plastic as used in the previous one we talked about before and it's also high heat so if given the opportunity this is the bad boy i'm keeping so i have one of these epos devices in my backpack i take everywhere i go even places where i don't necess i can't necessarily take my gas mask i'm able to take this device now obviously you're probably not going to you may even though they're designed for aircraft you may have trouble you probably will have tro is device now obviously you're probably not going to you may even though they're designed for aircraft you may have trouble you probably will have trouble i'd say you're almost certain to have trouble trying to take one of these on a commercial u.s airline flight because it has an oxygen tank in it so when they scan it and it comes through the x-ray machine you can see the tank pretty pretty big uh it's a pretty big tank and um yeah so i wouldn't try to take it on an aircraft however you can take it in a lot of other places too you put one in your glove compartment in your car things like that they're very useful and here's but here's kind of the interesting part is that nobody seems to be selling these um these epos devices they don't show up very often um i think a while ago i saw one come up usually you're only able to get expired ones um or ones that have been expired for a long time like many many years uh the one i lucked out and got one that was um still in service but these things are rare they're hard to buy you can't just let you like you really have to eat the only place to get these is on ebay and even then that's pretty rare um but they're they do go by a few different t you like you really have to eat the only place to get these is on ebay and even then that's pretty rare um but they're they do go by a few different names so if you're interested in this uh try epos try googling that the you know emergency passenger oxygen system and uh try to find that from there uh you'll be able to find a few other products similar similar names just the epos is what the military calls them with the air force specifically calls it and sort of moving along to a much larger type system when you google like a smoke escape hood or smoke escape mask or something like that you'll come up with some devices like this which is basically a full head and face respirator um and that's pretty much it it's just got like a soft plastic or flexible thing it's got an actual filter on the front a nose cup and everything and those are all well and good those are actually far easier to find you won't be able to find ones made in the u.s though you will not be able to find one that is not made in china or some others questionable quality type manufacturer but they are cheap enough to where you can buy them and try them out so when you buy one buy two buy two or three and make sure lity type manufacturer but they are cheap enough to where you can buy them and try them out so when you buy one buy two buy two or three and make sure that everyone in your family is well trained on these i would if you're going to buy them i would buy quite a few of them all at once save up and do that and then that way you can just keep them on the shelf and once a year or so practice with them because it's not an intuitive thing to use um so yeah that's definitely something and then moving on to our last consideration for breathing is just a simple you know neck gaiter however this one's not just a simple neck gator you know a lot of people when the kovu crisis came out they sort of leaned on these buff type net gators as we call them in the military as you know means to sort of prevent the current virus spread and we can debate that all day long but here's the cool part about this this one particular buff it's made out of no max and nomex is fire resistant heavily fires that's what flight suits are made out of it's what all wildland firefighter clothing is made out of and basically this buff you can put around your face cover your mouth and it will prevent you from being burned nd firefighter clothing is made out of and basically this buff you can put around your face cover your mouth and it will prevent you from being burned it will not stick to your skin it will not do any of that so if you're going to buy a buck if you're going to wear one for covet if you're going to use one or have one in the office don't buy a bandana well i mean you can if you want but if i was to had to make a choice i would buy one of these i buy a nomex buff now they're not cheap they're around 50 to 60 bucks so they're literally two to three times what a normal buff brand buff costs but if you buy the buff brand nomex fire resistant buff then it's going to cost you a little bit of money and i think it's worth it because it's such a great thing to have it weighs nothing it takes up no space in my pack and i'm able to carry it everywhere so uh that's that's how that goes um and then you know moving on we don't want to just talk about um sort of escaping from fire but some of the other considerations that we need to think about in the workplace or in you know grocery stores or something like that or some active shooter considerations um so we can we can talk about we can you know e workplace or in you know grocery stores or something like that or some active shooter considerations um so we can we can talk about we can you know we can google like how to survive an active shooter all day long we're not going to talk about that we're going to talk about very briefly touch on what you need to be thinking about and you know one of the big things is of course this news article pops up of you know could first responders save more mass shooting victims you know two years after the las vegas shooting unfortunate reality remains that victims die because of treatment delays and you know one thing that we can't you know everybody seems to sort of know but once again doesn't really know you know they don't really take into consideration is the fact that the police are not going to save you right their job is not to save you um it's not a political thing to say it's it's that the police's job is to kill or stop the shooter right if you're bleeding out of the ground guess what they're going to step over you to find the guy that's doing the shooting and to take him out and guess what they're not going to allow medics in the building until everybody is accounted until all o hat's doing the shooting and to take him out and guess what they're not going to allow medics in the building until everybody is accounted until all of the shooters are accounted for and down so uh you need to be an asset not a liability that's why we're super stoked um when companies come out with different products such as these ankle medical kits that are that are becoming popular nowadays it's an ankle trauma kit it just wraps around your ankle like an old school you know 1970s 1980s detective you know gun holster but instead of a gun it's a holster for medical supplies or even these sort of active shooter kits that a lot of employers are are having now these are absolutely vital if you don't have a way to carry a trauma kit on you at all times and i mean all times not not like oh it's in my bag and and i i take put my bag in my desk when i get to work no no no it needs to be in your pocket on your body attached to you at all times if you don't have a way to do that that's the goal you should be striving for and a lot of people can't do that we of course can't even follow our own rule and abide by that because a lot of times we're wearing suits and ties and it's kind of hard to n't do that we of course can't even follow our own rule and abide by that because a lot of times we're wearing suits and ties and it's kind of hard to do it's a little easier to do with an ankle kit because you know usually we buy a pants or a little wider at the bottom and allow allow you know an ankle kit and an ankle holster on the other leg to be concealed but so there are options but you know something once again to keep in mind and another thing is you know going along with the sort of theme of you know stopping holes plugging holes and making holes um you know that sort of logic that everybody sort of knows is putting panels in all your backpacks these bulletproof bullet resistant panels you know soft armor in your backpack so this is just a screenshot of the premiere body armors webpage they don't pay us jack and we i don't think i have any of their products but because their stuff is super expensive but it's tailor made for each backpack so i kind of get it um but yeah you can buy a soft armor panel for as little as 30 bucks from a reliable dealer that actually has a license to sell them and has them certified so do your research and and i would heavily consider that sort from a reliable dealer that actually has a license to sell them and has them certified so do your research and and i would heavily consider that sort of thing it's become that's kind of like that's become the norm now is to have a soft armor backpack in your backpack uh soft number panel in your backpack rather um and then you know once again you know sort of continuing the analogy with making holes is you know concealed carrying you know we're gonna have a whole separate series on concealed carrying and and what our sort of thoughts and practices on it are but once again we don't want to be just a millionth voice when it comes to this sort of stuff we're not experts in it we're just casual users we're intel nerds we're not shooters here so when we have had to either conceal guns for personal use or even conceal weapons while on the job we're not end-all be-all experts but you do need to consider the prevalence of these dreaded signs here these no concealed weapons signs right so a lot of businesses you know we're very cognizant of the fact that we can't carry weapons a lot of times like when i was um you know when all of us here sort of you know you know we're on active duty at va e fact that we can't carry weapons a lot of times like when i was um you know when all of us here sort of you know you know we're on active duty at various points you know because we have people that aren't in the military anymore we have people that are still in but um you know some of us are still in some of us or not but no one we know has been allowed to carry a weapon while on base not even mps not even the military police that are guarding the freaking gate are allowed to carry their personal firearms on base they have to go to the armory and check them out so to check them out for their duty session and then if they you know they're not allowed to carry their off time on base whereas a lot of jurisdictions in the civilian world police officers are required to carry their duty weapon and their off hours so that's just something you know that's part of our society nowadays is is we need to um yes concealed carrying is a great thing to do but in a lot of situations it's either frankly not allowed or counter counter intuitive so we also need to consider okay what if i can't carry a gun in here does that mean i'm totally useless no you don't want to be a liability just because yo also need to consider okay what if i can't carry a gun in here does that mean i'm totally useless no you don't want to be a liability just because you're unarmed you want to be an asset no matter if you're armed or not right so that's you know the running theme with this and then we also have moving along here to the next slide we have a lot of social considerations right so just like this image here this guy wearing the suit with a with a nice tactical cobra belt guess what that's a no-go you can't wear that stuff like it's it's a cool photo right then i'm sure it was meant to sell the product but there's no way on earth i'm going to be able to put on a nice a nice business suit like that and wear a tactical belt with it it just doesn't work you can't do that right so you have to um have the ability like you know like we have in our own kits of having that small little bdu belt that actually will be able to function if you have to repel off of something right so as soon as you know if i'm at work and i wear a suit and tie guess what you know as soon as something happens as soon as a fire alarm goes off or something you know happens or oh there's a report of an active shooter near you know as soon as something happens as soon as a fire alarm goes off or something you know happens or oh there's a report of an active shooter nearby guess what changing my belt i'm taking my dress belt off i'm putting the tactical belt on it'll fit right through the loops on my dress pants and guess what it still works people may look at you a little strange but during a time of emergency it's very unlikely to be able to be looking at your belt right so it's about the ability to casually scale up to the point to where you can do it even if you work in a hostile work environment and your boss doesn't really let you prep or doesn't even allow you to save yourself you know a lot of times so you want to be able to scale up or scale down another consideration is of course your co-workers right i think that very few of us and you know i may be speaking out of turn but very few of us hate all of our co-workers right yeah sure a job's a job it's not exactly meant to be fun a lot of times but very few of us live like in this picture where we get all we get along hunky-dory with every single co-workers usually there's somebody in every officer everybody hates there's somebody you know a we get all we get along hunky-dory with every single co-workers usually there's somebody in every officer everybody hates there's somebody you know a lot of people are apathetic towards one another a lot of people don't really care about each other a few people are good friends here and there sometimes you might get lucky you might have a whole office whole division where everybody gets along swimmingly but we're also trying to cater to the people that don't have that situation so yeah the um the the point is is that you want to be able to um you don't want to just abandon your co-workers right i know a lot of people that would much rather die than leave their coworkers behind and we don't want people to have to make that choice and if making that choice means oh i've got to carry two riggers belts in my pack yeah i'm gonna do that i'm gonna i don't wanna you know have to leave a co-worker behind and me repel completely to safety you know out of a window and leave them high and dry i want to have the ability to you know since it's kind of an advanced climbing technique and we're all sort of we're all pretty avid rock climbers here but i want to be able to lower somebody down to a l d of an advanced climbing technique and we're all sort of we're all pretty avid rock climbers here but i want to be able to lower somebody down to a lower floor and then repel down myself that way i can once again be an asset not a liability and i'm not going to be a you know cold-hearted person and leave my co-workers behind when it's a perfectly survivable situation if they have the right equipment right you can't save everybody but if you can save just one more person it's worth the extra two ounces in your pack to carry an extra belt or an extra length of rope so that's just something to um to think about another thing is along those same lines is your family like me personally i'm never going to egress out of my house without my family you know you say that and then sometimes you know people people are aren't able to you know like a fire breaks out you know god forbid when you're not home and you know your family stuck inside and you you're helpless you can't help right but if given the opportunity i'm going to do everything i can i'll you know die if necessary to save even just one of my family members so you know we're not i think john lovell put out a pretty good video abou n i'll you know die if necessary to save even just one of my family members so you know we're not i think john lovell put out a pretty good video about about how he ditched his three-day you know bug out bag type scenario because it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek way of saying look you got to remember your family right you can build the nice gucci 10 20 30 000 bug out bag that's covering every single scenario but if the people you know you love and care about don't have the same setup then what's what's it for right sure it might be something if you survive can survive every incident but if your family members can't do that then you know are you really better off surviving um so that's another consideration that we're not trying to ignore we're just trying to get people to think about when when talking about this sort of stuff another consideration is you know once again medical supplies like you're probably going to get hurt you're probably going to get hurt pretty badly and chances are a lot of other people are going to get hurt as well so being able to have the skills to improvise medicine i think one of the most valuable classes and one of the most valuable things type skills i've l so being able to have the skills to improvise medicine i think one of the most valuable classes and one of the most valuable things type skills i've learned over the years is austere environment medicine and being able to treat a wound without a first aid kit treat a you know stop bleeding without a trauma kit you know of course it's it's harder to do right i'm not saying you know the whole you know attitude of well don't carry a tourniquet because you've got a belt don't you you know that's that's ridiculous to think that but at the same time you know you you also want to be able to maximize your chances of success right so you know i carry tourniquet with me everywhere i go right but i also know how to use my belt if i had to and if i've got somebody you know if i've got two family members that both need a tourniquet guess what one of them is getting the tourniquet and the other ones they're not i'm just gonna i'm not gonna just let them bleed out they're gonna get the belt too right so if i don't know how to improvise a medical solution um you know i'm not just going to you know let them perish right in there and not do anything about it i'm going to do the best i can and by b olution um you know i'm not just going to you know let them perish right in there and not do anything about it i'm going to do the best i can and by being able to to have that knowledge have that preparation have that little bit of extra talent skill and gear that increases my capabilities and that's what we're all about right another thing that's a consideration that's a very social consideration is the stigma surrounding the concept of prepping now i know a lot of our listeners are probably going to say that you know a lot of the things we've put out especially with our calm guide you know i think we probably gave off the wrong impression that we're the word doomsday preppers we're prepping for the end of the world or something like that that's not true at all i wouldn't classify any of us here as preppers i would i would however classify as as people who try to who recognize that certain pieces of gear certain skills certain events and certain preparations are required and needed uh in everyday life right so you know if your co-worker you know sees you know sees your your little you know firefighter bug out bag and they ask you oh hey bob what's that and you tell them oh yeah th ker you know sees you know sees your your little you know firefighter bug out bag and they ask you oh hey bob what's that and you tell them oh yeah this is an emergency rappelling rig so that in case this building catches fire i can repel down to the ground safely he's going to probably look at you a little funny right so the the the tactics the thoughts the techniques and things like that have to be covert enough to where you know your average bear your average joe is not going to freak out on you right and and it's unfortunate that we have to do that sort of thing but in an emergency the person who's most prepared is going to get a lot of attention um that's that's for sure um i even go back to my days as when i was trying to eke my way through college i worked part-time as a park ranger and i remember one day we had to do something i think it was like some kind of like county-wide cookout or something and somebody needed a lighter or a match or something to start a grill up and um i was the only one with a with a lighter and um i being the you know the textbook boy scout had always when i was a park ranger because i went to remote areas of the park i always carried in my cargo p eing the you know the textbook boy scout had always when i was a park ranger because i went to remote areas of the park i always carried in my cargo pocket a small little um survival kit and in that survival kit i had a small little bic lighter so i didn't have the one in my pocket normally so i was like oh okay cool so i'll pull down my survival kit little tin you know survival kit type thing pull it out hand the lighter over and like i had like 15 people look at me like i was the most weird creature on the earth and these were park rangers these were people who were supposed to know wilderness survival skills right they're supposed to know that you know if if i was to you know pull out a survival kit to light a candle like a wedding or something okay that'd be a little weird but we're all park rangers for god's sakes and you know so it's a little it's a little weird that that sort of thing happens but it does you know maybe maybe that'll sound like kind of an isolated incident but um it definitely left an imprint on me that made me think oh i probably shouldn't have done that or you know oh i'm going to do things a little bit differently next time and uh so yeah that's something think oh i probably shouldn't have done that or you know oh i'm going to do things a little bit differently next time and uh so yeah that's something to consider as well we're we find ourselves lucky that in our chosen profession now even as analysts we can do things like wear rigger's belts to work we can do things like bring in a military style bag but to the people who wear suits and ties and go to work right who have to carry in leather briefcases or people who have to wear a uniform that's you know um and don't have things you know or aren't able to carry bags with them you know we feel for you we're trying to help people like that as well because i think a lot of times the whole prepping community um doesn't really understand that that's a consideration so um you know and then sort of moving on um kind of along the active shooter type scenario going back to that we also have to realize that hey if we're going to you know i think everybody who who has a concealed carry permit kind of goes through this in their mind of oh what am i going to do if i an active shooting goes down how am i going to respond you know am i going to shoot the guy or am i going to you know what's going i going to do if i an active shooting goes down how am i going to respond you know am i going to shoot the guy or am i going to you know what's going to happen right i think everybody even if they don't want to admit i think everybody not quite fantasizes about it but you think about it if nothing else right and you know one of the things to consider that it's become very very apparent lately is hey look you know when the police show up um you might be a target you might be mistaken for the shooter and we don't want that to happen that's why you know holsters are so important and the you know even the israelis in this photograph the israeli police have figured out a solution to that because a lot of their officers are plain clothes and they have figured out that they can have these little hats that have the word security or police written along the side that you can only buy for a police officer in israel and uh the idea is that hey if something goes down you gotta shoot somebody boom boom boom take care of the threat and then you know or if you have to arrest somebody and quickly pull that hat out of your pocket so basically off-duty police officers instead of carrying you know th w or if you have to arrest somebody and quickly pull that hat out of your pocket so basically off-duty police officers instead of carrying you know they carry on a badge of course but they also put these little hats on that make them recognizable their little folding hats just slip right into a pocket and that is a good solution you can get these in america too there's a company that makes a copycat version of this which is kind of cool we might do a video on that when we talk about our active shooting stuff but you know we always need to think you know hey just because we we sort of kind of run through our mind in a scenario it might not go down that way and i can't think of anything more detestable or more you know sort of morbidly ironic than you know somebody actually being a good hero and taking out an active shooter before they're able to harm somebody and then immediately getting shot themselves by the police when they show up because the police didn't know any better so um you know we don't often think about those things but maybe we should so you know moving along to to coming back back and forth i know we're kind of moving back and forth a lot but coming back to the the s aybe we should so you know moving along to to coming back back and forth i know we're kind of moving back and forth a lot but coming back to the the sort of fire egress uh scenario this is a photograph it's going to be kind of hard to describe sorry for our podcast listeners but um this is a photograph i took from the 148th floor of the burj khalifa the burj in dubai this is from the sky lounge there so i i chose this photo because it's not because it's necessarily cool photo but because you can see the edges of the window really well and i remember thinking when i was there hey this glass is really thick and that glass was probably three quarters of an inch thick if not a full inch thick there is no way on earth i'm getting through that glass there's nothing on earth that i can use to get through that glass not at all my little rescue me keychain [Music] keychain window breaker not to dent it at all and remember i had to go through a metal detector just to get up there to that so there's no way i can bring even a larger hammer or anything like that so you must you know remember that hey you're if you're in a high rise check out your windows you might not be able to do any of the s thing like that so you must you know remember that hey you're if you're in a high rise check out your windows you might not be able to do any of the stuff we've talked about um and you might have to make additional preparations you know likewise you also have to remember um that you might not have a clean edge you might be able to just barely poke you know get a hole in a window and you might not have a clean edge by which to feed your rope out so you don't want to immediately you know come out the window and then put weight on the line and then immediately cut through your rope and follow your death that would probably win you a darwin award we don't want that we want you know assets no liabilities and certainly not um uh such an unfortunate way to to meet your demise is that so that's definitely another point another serious consideration to have another set of series of considerations are psychological considerations um you know sort of like those immatures just kind of remind me to talk about you know the metal detectors once again um a lot of times you're not going to be able to take any of this stuff into the building right you might have to make do you might have to bring th n um a lot of times you're not going to be able to take any of this stuff into the building right you might have to make do you might have to bring this all in separately in one kit you know instead of in one kit you might have to bring it all in separately and um sort of maybe hopefully you can talk your way into it right you could probably put a rescue you know like a carabiner on your keyring one day and then on you know a a figure eight or a descender on your curing the next day and sort of build your collection that way but um we're especially mindful of people who can't who don't have the luxury of working in a place where there's not a huge amount of security right so um we we're cognizant of that and we're aware of the people out there that work in those types of scenarios and like for us we can't conceal carry at work so you know that's that's a big big you know gap in our plans that we can't fight back you know if there were an active shooter so you know something like this like this uh this image shows that the sort of larger handheld glass breaker hammer style devices you might not be able to get by by bringing one of those in even though that might be your best chance er handheld glass breaker hammer style devices you might not be able to get by by bringing one of those in even though that might be your best chance of success for getting through a window on a high-rise building or even just a three or four story building when the glass is thicker so you might just have to make do with what you got but really all this is about is triggering thoughts and and and ways of thinking about things you know another thing to consider is you know what if you have you know handicapped co-workers or other mobility impaired co-workers you know one of going back to the whole world trade center thing one of the big things that slowed everybody down was um uh people who are mobility impaired who who were ambulatory they could walk but they not very well like they were elderly or something and the the report many many reports directly cite the fact that it slowed down operations because they had to walk one step at a time they'd have one hand on a handrail down the stairwell and they had to have another person on the other side of them holding them and sitting them as they went so they took up a lot of space in stairwells slowed things down a lot and you know tha e other side of them holding them and sitting them as they went so they took up a lot of space in stairwells slowed things down a lot and you know that's a big consideration that you have to think about um and we're of course we're not saying to leave these people behind no no we need to think about how we can better be assets to these people right because we're all about saving lives right we're not necessarily about taking lives or or even saving our own lives we're about saving other people's lives as much as we can so being able to figure out how to get your mobility impaired co-worker down a stairwell by yourself in the dark in the smoke that's a big consideration and me personally you know we're obviously in a profession where this is not so much a concern but you know we've all worked civilian jobs before we all you know have worked where with people who have um who have had you know some kind of disability and not able to go up and down stairs and you know what we're not going to leave them we're not going to leave them at the you know designated fire point guess what they're coming down with us so you know that's why it's imperative to train train train if you have never l you know designated fire point guess what they're coming down with us so you know that's why it's imperative to train train train if you have never lifted a rescue randy up onto your shoulders before i can tell you from personal experience you know it's not for the faint of heart i can tell you that much if you've never put another human being on your back or lifted another human being back off the floor is dead weight i could tell you that some of the strongest people on the earth who can bench press you know a lot of weight it's it's a little bit of a different game right so that's why we highly suggest recommending um so i highly suggest looking at different carry methods you know being you know be an asset not a liability again you know if it means that i've got to put two um if it means i have to develop a whole kit for a person in my office who's mobility impaired and they never know about it guess what i'm going to do it i'm going to have you know a whole kit for them especially i'm going to have you know rolling full up litter i'm going to have another smokehood another smoke mask another set of gloves guess what they're going to get the whole package and that co-worker th r i'm going to have another smokehood another smoke mask another set of gloves guess what they're going to get the whole package and that co-worker they may hate my guts they may not like me at all and they and certainly they're never going to know it but i'm going to do it anyway because that's you know i want to i want to help them out when when things go sour and i don't want to you know it's not like trying to take a high road and say that you're better than them but it is you know something to consider you know you want to to help people right not um not hurt them right and and i can't think of anything more more heart-wrenching than um having to run away from a fire right we're we're in the profession here where we run to the fires right that's our our mission we're not firefighters but we're gonna run to the victims to try to help them as much as possible and you know but once again we can't help anybody if we're dead ourselves so um you know not to digress or anything but that's just sort of how we how we feel about that you know and then you also have to worry about you know this is a real real worry here you know your classic image of your your co-worker who doesn't take now and then you also have to worry about you know this is a real real worry here you know your classic image of your your co-worker who doesn't take anything seriously you know a lot of people um get into the group think theory you know a lot of people um don't quite recognize that something as serious as as um you know something serious is going on right so that's why it's important to be a leader right that's that's the whole point of being a leader in your workplace and being you know because a lot of times poor leaders get people killed more than if somebody had followed you know not a perfect leader but someone who's slightly better so poor leadership gets people killed as that quote earlier mentioned where you know the port authority was giving bad guidance because they didn't know the situation the port authority didn't know certain information so we're giving you know bad guidance you know somebody who has the authority who has the leadership skills to be able to stand up and say no we need to go now um that is needed in a lot of these cases so it's always better to to treat everything more serious than it actually is and you know be mocked forward or embarrassed or you kn t of these cases so it's always better to to treat everything more serious than it actually is and you know be mocked forward or embarrassed or you know hey we probably could have held out or hey we didn't need to evacuate or you know oh that unit across the street from us didn't evacuate but we did what's up with this you know it's much rather to be embarrassed than it is to be dead and so that's just it and trust me you don't want it weighing on your conscious i i can't remember the gentleman's name unfortunately but one of the port authority guys who who was going by the book during 9 11 who was out on the street saying look hey you know people like i mentioned before people have been killed by falling debris everybody go back inside it's safer there it's safer inside the building this building can't fall because of you know we've tested for this we've tried it we've analyzed it we've had hundreds of experts and thousands of people be involved in the preparations for this very thing so we need to follow what we know and you know he personally sent people to their death who had the sense to get out of the building right and it's not because he's a bad guy you know i really feel f personally sent people to their death who had the sense to get out of the building right and it's not because he's a bad guy you know i really feel for the guy um and he he um his self admitted that he is suffering from he's suffered from very severe depression since that day and he's on a lot of medications just to keep from harming himself because of the regret that he lives with um because of that and that is that is horrible and you know we we don't wish that on anyone um i really feel for the guy but um you know we also got to realize that we ourselves can make that very mistake too so even you know it's all about doing the best you can right and nobody can nobody can fault you for doing the best you can so that's just how that's how we feel about that you know and another um consideration is well maybe the incident isn't what you thought so like this this news clipping from um from uh a uh a mass shooting from a few years ago the mass shooter uh the first thing he did was pull the fire alarm and uh it funneled people right outside so we have to remember that um you know things may not be what they seem um things may be quite different and we're oftentimes forced to make deci ide so we have to remember that um you know things may not be what they seem um things may be quite different and we're oftentimes forced to make decisions based off of incomplete information very rarely do we know the whole story afterwards is the only story where we hear that so that's you know once again and that's more food for thought and you know another final consideration that we'll sort of end on here is is you know um what to do after right we're probably going to have another separate episode on this but you know say you've you've survived you've eager us from the building you've either you know gone down to the stairwell like everybody else or you've been trapped and you know had to rappel out of the building well you know in this shot from minneapolis this building was purposefully set on fire and a sort of not a whole lot of people will admit it but if you look at every textbook definition this was an act of terrorism and it was deliberately set on fire with the intention of doing harm and creating fear on u.s soil so that's pretty much you know terrorism in our minds so guess what you've made it out of the building now you have to deal with the mob so you might have at's pretty much you know terrorism in our minds so guess what you've made it out of the building now you have to deal with the mob so you might have to the situation might be uh not just as simple as oh thank god i'm out of the building now i'm safe right you always need to be alert you always need to have situational awareness and you always need to think about things that you may not have thought about before so um we'll sort of end on the note of of you know the goal of this video is to increase the survivability right that's what we're all about we're not preppers we're not even saying that just to sort of soften the blow for people right we're saying that we we're not trying to amass a stockpile of gear right to to survive the end of the world right we're all about increasing survivability because when you increase survivability that's your that means increased capabilities and that's what we're that's what our goal is right we may be intel nerds right we may not be experts on any of this stuff we may be novices in this field right but this is how it links back to intel is that you want to be once again like a broken record you want to be an asset not a vitamin you want to be ght but this is how it links back to intel is that you want to be once again like a broken record you want to be an asset not a vitamin you want to be an asset not a liability so um that's what really this whole series is about that's why we talk about gear not because our our viewer base wants us to even though that's that's kind of cool we try to do things that people like us to do sometimes and because a lot of people want to hear our thoughts and a lot of stuff that's not necessarily intel based um but uh it's not just to help those people out but it's it's because you know things are linked to intel and things are things are linked to information gathering information sharing that you wouldn't really think of right you would never think uh you know that um somebody would need to do most of this stuff right but it really helps out being and you know being an asset to your team so um hopefully this this video helped helped everyone out a lot and just we'll run over our other platforms right click we have our website which will be in the link below you can check out a lot of things we have our full communications plan that you can download from there we also have blog posts that n the link below you can check out a lot of things we have our full communications plan that you can download from there we also have blog posts that we occasionally uh drop on some things that we don't really have the time to do a podcast on but we also don't have enough space to do to drop in our key base server but we also have you know social media we have our instagram account here we have the key base server as well as in the link for that we also have our podcast which uh if you're listening to us on the podcast you guys rock our original viewer base right listener base but if you're watching us on youtube check out our podcast because we've got a lot of other episodes that are very similar to this or of an intelligence nature on a very wide variety of topics right and then we also have if you want to support us in any way we have a teespring store where you can buy some of our merch we have you know all kinds of stuff we're working on patches right now but we're having a hard time figuring out how to do it anonymously if you know what i mean but we've got some things in the works and we'll be dropping something very soon on that front um so thank you once again everybody fr now what i mean but we've got some things in the works and we'll be dropping something very soon on that front um so thank you once again everybody from st for sticking with us through this very long episode and thank you again for checking out this first inaugural episode on our youtube channel stay tuned for more we will definitely be back and as everybody else knows especially our podcast listeners always remember to fight in the shade so s2 actual out