Have you got your Bug Out Bag packed? Neither do I, but as soon as you’re done reading this I recommend you get right on that.
I sense your confusion. Let us step back, then, and consider how Bug Out Bags became a thing.
We live in an age of rampant paranoia, and how could it be otherwise? There are myriad sources of information available to us, and we carry in our pockets devices to access them 24 hours a day. They bring us news of natural disasters, terrorist attacks and Kim Jong Un’s latest tantrum as soon as they happen; when there is no new information to impart, talking heads fill the time reminding us in ominous tones that the potential for even greater calamities is everywhere.
There are those among us who, ironically, seek refuge from this daily litany of mayhem and woe in video games, movies and television shows set in even worse worlds. I’m not a fan of this genre and so can’t speak with authority on the subject, but most of the story lines seem to revolve around zombies.
Such is our world. Most of us cope by ignoring the bad stuff as best we can, but that’s not enough for some people. They need something to cling to in an uncertain, dangerous world. Hence the Bug Out Bag.
What is a Bug Out Bag? It’s a bag, for starters. Most experts — meaning people who have websites — favor military-looking backpacks with lots of drawstrings, zippers and Velcro closures. A quality bag is an absolute necessity; the last thing you want is to have a strap break when you’re on the run from zombies.
Once you’ve got your bag, the idea is to pack it with items that will help you survive for a few days — everything from energy bars to rolls of duct tape to water purification tablets — if the bottom falls out and all the mini-marts are closed. You keep it handy, and when the ball drops you grab it and flee.
Let us examine a garden variety Bug Out Bag scenario: some self-righteous psycho has unleashed a plague. It’s slowly advancing toward your neighborhood, so you strap on your bag and hit the road. You will be walking, of course, because every route out of the city is hopelessly gridlocked by stalled cars filled with sweaty people who had the same idea as you.
Day one passes uneventfully, giving you hope, but on day two your tent/tarp is shredded by the wind. Your duct tape repair doesn’t work because the roll has been sitting in your garage for 10 years and has solidified into a duct tape doughnut; you’re forced to take shelter in a highway culvert. On day three you eat the last energy bar. You use up half your purification tablets on water you scooped out of a ditch and your kids still refuse to drink it. You take a swig to show them it’s okay. You gag because it tastes like mud, oil and rotting weeds.
At this point you’re barely 20 miles from home, and a number of critical questions occur. Who drank all the bottled water? How bad can the plague be? Where exactly are we going?
South Dakotans are fortunate in a couple respects. We are too spread out to make for efficient carnage, so anyone looking to make a point through death and destruction is likely to look elsewhere for a target. This also makes Our Fair State the kind of place Bug Out Baggers dream of reaching: a spot far from the madding crowd where they can ride out the storm.
Which brings us to South Dakota’s newest and most unique settlement: Vivos xPoint, which calls itself”The Largest Survival Community on Earth.”
From Nostradamus to the Hopi Indians, prophets and seers have been predicting that”epic global catastrophes will befall the Earth,” according to the Vivos website.”We have been warned of Armageddon, Nibiru/Planet X, a sudden pole shift, future plagues, an EMP blast, a solar kill shot, a super volcanic eruption, major earth changes, killer asteroids and comets, mega tsunamis, an economic meltdown and even the anarchy that will certainly follow any one of these events.”
Vivos is located at the former Black Hills Ordnance Depot in Fall River County. There aren’t many people in the neighborhood, which is why the army thought it would be a good place to stockpile bombs until we needed them. They built more than 500 storage bunkers, half-circles of reinforced concrete tucked into the prairie sod; some thought they resembled igloos, which is how the nearby town came to be named Igloo. If you feel the need you can purchase one of these bunkers and convert it into a doomsday refuge.
Each bunker is equipped with heavy steel doors that were originally intended to contain an explosion if something went wrong. In this iteration, the doors will keep all manner of bad stuff outside — including people who didn’t plan ahead. You and your loved ones and the supplies you laid up for the inevitable catastrophe can sit inside, smug, safe and sound.
Just remember to bring fresh duct tape.
Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2017 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.