Neighborhood security and civil unrest

Before

• This page is for a war, a foreign force nearby, an occupation, or a collapse of ordinary services. It is about your household and your block. It is not a plan to attack anyone, and it does not discuss armed confrontation.
• Name lookout and warning roles before you need them. A lookout watches from a window, on a shift short enough to sleep, and reports direction, number, and vehicles. The lookout does not follow anyone. Agree one signal that means “look” and another that means “leave.”
• Blackout and light discipline: if the street is dark, a bright window, a phone at the door, or a generator in the open marks the house. Cover the windows. Agree the one dim light you may use inside. Turn the rest off. The concealment guide is the longer version.
• Gray-man blending means you dress and move like the people already on that street. Do not invent a uniform, do not travel as a convoy, and do not carry a pack that announces a stash. Boring is the point.
• Comms security and radio discipline: assume someone else is listening. Speak briefly, on the schedule, with no inventory, no cache, and no route. The family-communications guide is the license rule. Do not transmit on a service you are not allowed to use.
• Counter-surveillance awareness is noticing the same car, walker, or drone twice and writing it down. Do not follow them to find out more. Tell the lookouts what you saw.
• Mutual aid roles still matter: water, food, a medical liaison, childcare, and a clerk. Helping a neighbor is not a chain of command over their house.
• Sheltering or leaving under occupation is a decision you write now. Stay when the house is intact, you have water, and the road is a crowd or a checkpoint you do not understand. Leave when the house is no longer safe, officials order it, a fire is coming, or the family plan says the meeting place is next. Walk the route before you need it.
• OPSEC means you do not post stores, watch times, routes, or who is away. A cache stays in the concealment guide, split so one find is not everything, and known only to the people who must resupply it.
• Call the authorities when they still answer, for a crime, a fire, or an injury. If they do not answer, the lookout’s job is still to warn the block, not to go out and settle it.
• Pack the grab-and-go bag before you are watching a clock. One trusted news path: county alerts if they exist, a weather radio, and one out-of-area person. Do not pass on a story you cannot trace.

During

• If the plan is to shelter, shelter. Blackout the windows. Check in on the schedule, then get off the radio.
• The lookout reports. Nobody goes outside alone to investigate a noise.
• If officials say leave, or your own leave line is met, leave. Do not wait to see who is on the street.
• Do not gather in the road. A crowd spreads rumors and is easy to notice.
• The same observer twice is a note for the log, not a reason to chase.

After

• Rest the people who were on watch.
• Write what the lookout saw, separate from what people feared.
• If you stayed, reset the window covers for the next night. If you left, tell the out-of-area contact you arrived, and do not describe the route on the air.
• If someone was hurt, a report to whatever authority still functions is the record. Do not go confront anyone yourself.

Checklist

• ☐Lookout shifts and two warning signals written down
• ☐Blackout covers and one allowed indoor light
• ☐Radio schedule with no inventory on the air
• ☐Stay-or-leave lines for occupation, in plain words
• ☐Grab-and-go bag packed, route walked once
• ☐Cache known to few, and not posted
• ☐One trusted news path, and no rumor chain

Sources

Official pages only. Open them for the full instructions.

• Ready.gov: Evacuation
• Florida Division of Emergency Management: Evacuation plan
• St. Johns County Emergency Management
• Ready.gov: Build a kit
• Ready.gov: Power outages