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On last night’s EXIT group call, retired Navy veteran and OG EXIT Guy Francis discussed his evacuation from the Augusta area during Hurricane Helene last September, and relief efforts thereafter. Lessons learned:

Preparedness isn’t about gear.

Francis’ biggest takeaway from the experience is that physical fitness, mobility, and social capital mattered way more than gear. Especially in a city like Augusta, his expensive kit was a security liability as much as a benefit.

Most prepper fantasies involve hunkering down to restart civilization, but that’s not even close to the most likely emergency outcome. Pack light, move quick, and get to safety as quickly as possible.

Who, not how.

Francis’ biggest assets in keeping his family safe and comfortable were a good network and good intelligence. By getting in touch with friends throughout the region, he was able to avoid threats and obstacles, find resources, and make himself useful to others who were in worse shape.

The ideal networking situation is to be deeply connected in your local area, and have a broad network that provides optionality and intelligence from outside. We had an extended conversation on the value of an Area Study (more on this later.)

Fitness and psychological preparedness.

Keeping his family’s morale high was a challenge — Francis plans to do more short-notice camping trips to prepare his children for disruption and discomfort, and require more unplugged time so that they learn to entertain themselves without electronics.

Francis also benefited from his MMA and firearms training in being able to interact confidently with unfriendly or untrustworthy strangers. Sustaining a serious injury later taught him not to take basic fitness for granted — the situation would have been much worse without the ability to walk, run, and carry heavy things. (Sometimes these situations are unavoidable — another good reason to cultivate a strong early-warning and local support network.)

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EXIT News

* On next week’s full-group call (9/2), we’re running a book club on The Forest Passage by Ernst Junger. It’s a quick read, and more important now than when it was written.

* New Calls:

* Family/Fatherhood and Homeschooling on alternating Thursdays at 7PM ET/4PM PT

* Leadership on the second Wednesday of each month at 8PM ET/5PM PT. (This month, 9/10, we will discuss Alexander and Caesar from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.)

* Civic Engagement on third Thursdays at 10PM ET/7PM PT.

* Several of the guys will be in DC next week for NatCon. Reach out in the #dc channel to coordinate a meetup.

* Caught a couple of the guys in Utah Valley this week. Planning a sauna build before it gets cold — check #utah channel for details.

* BBQ meetup in Boise September 1. Check #idaho channel to RSVP.

* Canyoneering Trip in Zion National Park (10/17-10/18). We should be getting the results from our lottery any day now. Check #meetups and #utah channel for updates.

>THERE IS NOTHING BELOW THE PAYWALL<

Network Preparedness during Hurricane Helene

EXIT Podcast (private feed for joe@hootman.org)