"As for the liability waiver, maybe we could make it a requirement that they have to bring a lawyer with them into the danger zone."


That's an underhanded solution. You know that by the time they finish negotiating the terms of the waiver, the flood will be over.

Instead of refusing to provide resuce, why not just make them post a bond for the cost of the rescue (or funeral)?

But seriously, the point of the OP is well taken. A good BOB will save you the problems of having to confront overworked, exhausted law enforcement officers at a checkpoint AND of having to risk your life if they do allow you back into a dangerous and fluid situation.

I don't know of anybody in a rescue organization that would let somebody die because they signed a piece of paper and be able to live with themselves. As a SAR volunteer, I'm just that, a volunteer. I'm not obligated to do anything I'm not confortable with...but I do have moral obligations as a human being.

Since my trip to Texas was put on hold, I will spend the afternoon here rather than doing work. I am pissed.....I really wanted to see Texas. Oh well....soon.

Anyway.

I worked the Quebec ice storms, Winnipeg floods, and the BC fires to assist the police and rescue agencies in evacuating people or bringing in supplies etc. We have vehicles that most agencies don't have that are useful for such aid to civil power operations. Most people were really happy to get out of danger and were really understanding. Others I really, really wanted to shoot a few times.

Theres always one in every bunch who serves no other purpose but to make life difficult for those who are just trying to do their job.

Its so true that I couldn't of said it better...

Sorry, I didn't mean to attribute that to you, user error here.

My point was we're talking about checkpoints, someone brings up guns while in the discussion (samhain) and having worked a checkpoint, I tend to connect the dots, maybe a little too fast, and presumes that the author of the post about what guns to get (not you, Samhain) was implying that he needed greater firepower to bypass a checkpoint. If that was not the intended direction, my apologies. No offense intended, and I hope none taken. Again, not my intention to paint you in a bad light.

Then you have absolutely no idea what a "state of emergency" means. In a state of emergency you have very limited rights. Under martial law, you have almost none.

More importantly, in any of these situations, it's not at all a "two-way street" in that sense of obligation to obey exists between the public and the representatives of law enforcement. It never was a two-way street, it never will be. While YOU might believe you need to go to place X, when a perimeter is set up at the scene of an emergency, you have absolutely no legal authority to cross into the scene. What's more, the law grants the right to use force - in varying degrees and in some cases all the way to deadly force - to prevent anyone from entering the scene of a declared emergency. And in those situations, it's the person attempting the bypass the perimeter who is wrong in the eyes of the law.

I posted the picture from CNN to stimulate this bit of reality-based planning, in the hopes that seeing what happens in real life, in a peaceful place like Iowa, would remind us all that we need to think hard about what it means to "go" when directed, and what it means to "go" when you can't get back, even if you need to.

It's not my intention to have this decay into an argument over civil rights or to entertain the idea that there's a good reason to risk lives to save homes that are under water.

My point, and I hope we all take it to heart, is that in the case of a large-scale natural disaster, are you ready to go and not need to attempt to get back until the "all clear" is sounded?

Because you can't tell the looters from the homeowners. You can't tell the thrill-seekers from the folk who left their prescriptions behind. You can't tell the lunatic who'll sue everyone because they caught hepatitis from some sludge from the guy who's hoping to find his dog.

That's why we close down flood zones.

We obviously have differing philosophical perspectives concerning individual rights. Having dealt with various government and LEO agencies both professionally and personally through the years, I'll keep my own council concerning recognition of and obedience to civil or military authority in an emergency situation and accept any consequences of the decisions I make.

No harm. This is probably not a good thread to discuss bug-out firearms.

Irrational behavior should be expected during states of emergency. I took samhain's firearm thought as a means to deal with irrational behavior much as the officers in that picture. The driver is fortunate the officers showed as much restraint as they did.

being employed by a emergency service, it's amazing how often people simply ignore us. Some people even ignore basic instructions. Mine favorite example in The Netherlands are the sirenes. We use them to alert people to close windows and doors, incase of haz-mat situation. Somehow a portion of the people simply ignore it and a suprising amount of people go out and watch whats happening. I have even seen people bringing there kids outside to watch.

Well there will always be people, that know better. Somehow i'm not very motivated to fix there problems...