Public concern over potential chemical, biologic, radioactive, or nuclear threats (CBRN) is at an all-time high. While people living in modern, developed countries enjoy a higher standard of living than ever before, they are increasingly aware that one attack could wreak havoc on their lives.
The first step for preparing for - and surviving - a CBRN attack is to figure out how to get home safely. This is especially true if you work in an urban area and need to combat crowds, public panic, or even physical threats.
We'll cover how to build a basic but versatile emergency bag suitable for everyday carry.
Get Home Bag Key Elements of a Bug Out Bag Backpacks to fit Everything you Need Building your Get Home Plan Quick Get Home Bag Checklist Key Survival Scenarios: Build a Versatile Pack Scenario 1: Civil Unrest & Riots Scenario 2: Chemical Spill Scenario 3: Deadly Virus Scenario 4: Nuclear Attack Conclusion - Best Get Home Bag Setup for 2025 Table of Contents
Source: Pawel Janiak on Unsplash
Get Home Bag
What is a get-home bag? It's one of the best survival tools in your arsenal.
A get home bag is designed to help you navigate CBRN threats to escape from an urban area and make it home safely.
Once you are home, you will need to decide if you can continue to shelter in your own home or if you need to further "bug out" to a more remote and/or stable location. To work through that, we recommend reading our Shelter in Place Vs. Bug Out Guide for 2024.
Key Elements of a Bug Out Bag
This "get home bag" is a short-term kit. Its purpose is to get you safely from work (or school, or wherever you spend the majority of your not-at-home time) back to your primary residence.
Because of this, you need to be selective. Realistically assess what you can carry on your back for several miles in a stressful situation.
Source: Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
Essentials for your Bag
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Gas mask
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Basic first aid kit
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Water bottle
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Protein bars
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Flashlight & extra batteries
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Compass
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Hand sanitizer
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Rubber gloves
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Pepper spray or other personal defense
Why You Need These Items
These essential items are focused on helping you meet your basic needs to get home from a threatened location: energy, hydration, navigation, self-defense, and basic personal protection to help you get home in one piece.
Food and water are, of course, essential. You'd be surprised at how quickly you run out of energy in a stressful, physically demanding scenario.
Food with a long shelf life, like protein bars, can fit in a smaller bag and give you bursts of energy. We recommend keeping at least a 20-ounce water bottle full in your pack, along with 3-5 packets of a powdered electrolyte like Liquid IV. The heavy dose of electrolytes is far superior at rejuvenating your body than drinking plain water and adds almost no weight.
You get home bag contents should also include basic protective and sanitizing gear. While a HazMat Suit is ideal, it may not fit in your bag. A poncho, hoodie, hand sanitizer, and gas mask can be used in a pinch to get through a life-threating scenario.
Don't forget that you will need to completely decontaminate once you get home.
WATCH NOW: Build a Basic Decon Station
The Best All-Around Gas Mask to Save your Life on your Journey Home
If you need to walk home from work in a CBRN scenario, a high quality, air-purifying gas mask is the most useful piece of protective equipment you have.
We recommend our CM-6M Tactical Gas Mask
Source: MIRA Safety
When you don this respirator, you’ll likely be wearing the same equipment the police are using. The quality for the price point of a modern, brand new (non-surplus) professional-grade gas mask is unmatched.
The mask features a wide panoramic visor for an unobstructed, 180 degree view, which is vital for situational awareness. It is made of bromobutyl rubber, making it ideal for resisting chemical warfare agents from burning your face or compromising your lungs. The CM-6M also features an integrated hydration valve that can be used with the included canteen, allowing you to drink without having to take off the mask.
Nice to Have
Depending on how much gear you can carry, you may want to include some of the following elements.
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Solar-powered phone charger
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Tinder and fire starting material
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Sunscreen
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Headlamp
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Poncho
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Duct tape
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Wet wipes
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Toilet Paper
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Sleeping Bag
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Radio
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Waterproof tarp
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Change of clothes
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Emergency blankets
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Paracord
Why You Might Want These Items
Extra medical supplies are always a good idea, but you need to balance the added weight with the likelihood of needing the supplies on your trip home. A basic trauma kit with bandages, splints/wraps, and painkiller might be what you need to get home if you have superficial injuries.
Many of the "nice to have items" are basic, lightweight survival gear for creating a makeshift camp on your way home. The tarp, paracord, duct tape, and change of clothes can all be useful if you are leaving a contaminated area and what to create a temporary safe zone. In most cases, it's best to just try to get home as quickly as you can.
Of course, you need to have adequate supplies stored at home to hunker down for a while. For that, read The Ultimate Home Survival Kit (2024 Edition)
Backpacks to fit Everything you Need
Any sturdy tactical backpack is going to do the job. Keep in mind a few key features:
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Adjustable, padded shoulder straps
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Sturdy construction
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Proportioned to your body
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Comfortable enough to carry for hours
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Dark color to avoid detection
Your preparedness kit would fit well in any of the following brands we've tested out:
Bags like these are all designed for carrying tactical gear over longer distances and periods of time, and are solid choices for an EDC (everyday carry).
Building your Get Home Plan
Each person's get home plan needs to be customized to their particular situation.
Just like a fire escape plan or hurricane evacuation route, your plan needs to be thought through, written down, communicated clearly to all family members, and practiced routinely.
Here are a few key questions to consider when building your plan:
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How many miles away from home are you?
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Will you need to make additional stops to pick up children/relatives?
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Can you reasonably walk home, or will you need a car/bike?
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What likely obstacles are in your way?
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What's the likelihood you will also deal with harsh weather?
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How many alternate routes are there back to your home?
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Can you easily stash your bag in your office/workplace?
Most of us can drive home on autopilot, listening to our favorite music or podcast. Developing an actionable get home plan requires you to think through alternate routes and potential obstacles. Use your imagination to proactively problem solve to navigate the miles from home.
Source: Craig Strahorn on Unsplash
Quick Get Home Bag Checklist
To summarize what we've covered so far, here is are the key elements in your survival kit backpack.
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Food and water (or water purification tool like a portable water filter)
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Navigation - compass and map
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Protection - gas mask, poncho, sanitizer, pepper spray or firearm
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First aid emergency kit
All of this should be balanced with what you can reasonably carry on a trek home. You might be tempted to overpack to be prepared for every scenario, but keep in mind that this kit is designed to get you back to home base as quickly as possible.
Key Survival Scenarios: Build a Versatile Pack
Now that we've covered the key elements of your survival bag, we will consider how you can use the different components in a few key scenarios. Knowing the different applications for your pack will maximize your preparedness and get you home safely.
Scenario 1: Civil Unrest & Riots
Between 2023 and 2024, the United States recorded 125 riots - a riot is defined as "violent demonstrations causing public disturbance and inciting crime."
Peaceful gatherings can sometimes turn ugly, and you don't want to be stuck on your way home with no protection.
Keep in mind that a common way for police officers to handle civil unrest is with 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile, otherwise known as CS gas. This chemical is non-lethal, but causes acute, painful symptoms to the eyes, respiratory tracts, and skin.
The best way to be prepared for this is with an air-purifying gas mask, like the CM-6M Full-Face Respirator
As discussed above, if you have this in your get home bag list, you will probably be wearing the same equipment that the police are. That means you can quickly escape the affected zone, which is likely to be only a few blocks, without respiratory or eye damage.
Source: Jose Luis Magana / AFP - Getty Images
Scenario 2: Chemical Spill
Chemical spills are unpredictable and can strike across the country.
A few recent examples include the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment in 2023, the 2023 Delaware River chemical spill, and the 2022 chemical spill on the West Virginia Turnpike.
Obviously, a gas mask is going to be a lifesaver to have in your kit to escape poisonous fumes. For chemical threats, we also recommend our CBRN Gas Mask Filter NBC-77
The NBC-77 SOF is the ideal filter for a wide range of chemical agents. It protects the user against fumes and vapors such as ammonias, acid gasses, mercury vapors, as well as organic and inorganic gasses. This top of the line filter can combat any toxic industrial chemicals that may arise from a plant.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Scenario 3: Deadly Virus
In winter 2020, no one expected the chaos that a little-known virus was going to cause. Now, we're all aware of the danger that invisible attackers can cause.
The best get home bag for a pandemic contains the items you need not only to travel home but to avoid spreading harmful bacteria or viruses to your family upon arrival.
While the CM-6M full face respirator that we recommend for other CBRN threats is a good solution, you might want something more lightweight to purify the air you breathe.
In an everyday carry context during a pandemic, a lightweight, half-face respirator is an ideal solution. Without committing to the bulkier and heavier full-face gas mask, the MIRA Safety Tactical Air-Purifying Respirator, or TAPR, comes in a very convenient and slim carrying case that could fit right into your get home bag.
This mask, combined with an ultra light filter like our ParticleMax P3, can filter down 99.9995% of bacterial and viral particulates from the air. If there’s a virus out there, it won’t sneak past this filter.
Source: MIRA Safety
Scenario 4: Nuclear Attack
Nuclear attack is seen as synonymous with "certain death" - but it doesn't have to be. Yes, it's a worst-case scenario, but there are things you can do to dramatically increase your chances of survival.
Avoiding radiation poisoning from nuclear fallout can be accomplished by immediately getting indoors behind the strongest material you can find - concrete block, brick, and earth is ideal, which is why fallout shelters are generally build underground.
After the initial blast, however, you're going to want to get home as quickly and safely as possible. The key here is to shield your body as much as possible from radioactive particles during your transit.
We have just the kit for your get home bag. It's called the Nuclear Survival Kit, and it includes a selection of items that are perfect for your get home bag if you’re concerned about a nuclear disaster or attack. Currently this combo is not available but each of these individual items can be purchased separately. This is a great base line of gear for nuclear fallout survival.
Source: MIRA Safety
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A MIRA CM-6M Gas Mask
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Drop-leg gas mask pouch
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Potassium iodide tablets
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NBC-77 SOF filter
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Hydration system and canteen
After a nuclear attack, people will flood the roadways to get home or away from cities. If you’re at work when this happens, this kit gives you the gas mask and filter you need if you’re in an area affected by radiation or fallout. Otherwise, you’ll have the gas mask pouch to easily carry it.
We also recommend adding a portable Geiger Counter to your kit.
Radiation can’t be smelled or seen. You need a way to measure the radiation to know when you need to don your protective mask.
A quality portable dosimeter will feature an integrated alarm, detect gamma radiation, and should be simple enough for a child to use. It should be sleek and be compact enough to fit right in your backpack or pocket.
Conclusion - Best Get Home Bag Setup for 2025
When disaster strikes, even a small kit and a basic plan can mean the difference between life and death. While Hollywood movies like to imagine that everyone will panic during an emergency, research indicates that most people will try to focus their energies on helping themselves and each other.
With a little bit of up-front education and planning, you can be a voice of reason and preparedness in a disaster and make sure you and your family get home safely.
Frequently Asked Questions