In the last article in this series I talked about more common ways to strengthen your front door. In this article I will share some hardcore ideas on how to barricade your door to hinder even the most committed home invaders.

If you haven’t read the first article yet, you probably should. It appeared on 8/21/2019 <click here to read>.

Picking up where we left off in the last article…

Step #3 –

So have I have touched on steps you can take in regular day-to-day living to protect your home from unlawful entry. Now, let’s talk about during more dire times such as serious grid-down (a.k.a. TEOTWAWKI). This is when you really, really want to keep the bad guys out and you are willing to take more active steps to do so. Here are some suggestions…

• You can do it yourself or buy existing products to “bar the door” from being breached. Essentially you would place two cross bars across the door and secured to the door frame. This reinforces the integrity of the door from being forced open. If your door only has three hinges you would place the bars halfway between the hinges, running horizontally. The bar must be nothing less than a 2” x 4” board, the larger the better. The best would be a metal bar. The brackets must also be heavy duty and very securely attached to the door frame and wall studs. Four brackets would be far better than two that were simply screwed into the door frame.The hinges and lockset are securing the door. The bars secure the weak areas between the hinges and lockset. Even if the hinges and lockset are blown off, the door stays intact due to the bars.

• A good way to strengthen the bar system mentioned above would be to use a 2” x 4” to brace up against the bar at a 45degree angle and anchored to the floor. Bracing both bars would produce a formidable door to breach.

• In my opinion here is how you really, really keep the bad guys out. Remember, they are trying to gain access by breaching the door to the point where they can get through the opening and make entry into your house. If we keep the opening so small that they can’t squeeze through, then we have bought a whole lot more time to muster a proper response to bad guys invading your castle.
• Here is yet another way to secure a door.

So far I have shared suggestions on keeping your door closed and secured as long as possible. But, regardless of your best efforts a determined committed criminal will open that door eventually. So, I suggest this handy-dandy idea to really thwart and control the access…

• Buy a 4’ x 8’ sheet of ¾” plywood.
• Buy a pick-up truck cargo tie-down net.
• Buy 10 – 15 “eye” hooks or bolts. Must be long enough to securely fasten into the door frame studs.
• Most people won’t want to install them ahead of time…so, when the time is right screw the eye-hook/bolts every 12” around your door. Make sure they go all of the way into the frame studs not just the door frame.
• Attached the pick-up truck cargo net to one set of eye-hooks on one side of the door.
• Place plywood sheet covering the door.
• Hook the rest of the cargo net to the remaining hooks, making sure that the cargo net is fairly snug holding the plywood against the door.
• When the door is finally breached the intruder will still not be able to make entry. The breached door will simply slam against the sheet of plywood which is held in place by the cargo net. Now the invader has to start all over trying to breach yet another obstacle. Since most home invaders will not be expecting this obstacle, nor trained to defeat it, you have just bought yourself more time to deal with the problem…or flee.

Step # 4 –

Remember, I said that a determined and committed criminal will breach your door at some point, especially if they are trained in door breaching techniques. The whole point is to create a delaying tactic to buy yourself time to implement your door breach defensive protocol. So what is your protocol?

Just a note as to the situation I will now write about…I am considering the situation to be the most dire of grid-down, where lawlessness is the norm, and assistance from law enforcement isn’t coming.

I maintain that there is only two realistic options in this situation, 1) fight, or 2) flight.

How do you determine which is best for your situation?

Flight –

I don’t think there is any easy or simple answer to that question, it will depend entirely on your specific situation. If you happen to have Chuck Norris staying the night for a pajama party, then you are in really good shape…fight! However, you may not be in a situation where you have the training or can’t risk the loss of life or even injury. That being the case, flight might be your only option…if it isn’t too late.

Doing nothing, not fighting or escaping, is a certain way to become a victim of whatever the bad guys have in mind.

If the bad guys are trying to get in the front door, and you have decided to take flight, you want to exit the house through the least expected way. You want to do so safely and head to a designated place of safety as well. This takes planning. It may be out a back door, a side door, or one or more windows. Whatever the plan is…don’t delay, execute it! The longer you delay the more likely the bad guys will move to counter your plan.

A good plan will leave one tactical person in the house to guard the family members waiting to exit the house. Another tactical person would have been the first person to exit the house and to secure the exterior for family members to safely exit. They will maintain that security responsibility until relieved or until everyone is safely out of the house. Then everyone moves quickly to the place of safety that has been designated. It is imperative that security be maintained to both the front and rear of the group that is moving.

Before actually entering the place of safety, the lead security person should observe the area for at least 10 – 15 minutes before the group enters the area. Even then, the lead security person enters the area by themselves to verify that it is safe before the rest of the group moves in. The rest of the group will hold up a reasonable distance away until they receive the “all clear” signal that it is safe.

Now, if that all goes according to plan and everyone is safe…what is the next step in the plan? Yup, you better have a “next step” in this plan…otherwise you exchange one unsafe place for another equally unsafe place.

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