Sorry, I wasn't very clear - my reference was to earthquakes. Hurricanes, with our modern weather monitoring, are a very different thing.

Earthquakes - no warning. Hurricanes - several days advance notice. I can remember looking at the weather maps just before Katrina and wondering why anyone remained behind. For that matter, why live there in the first place? - the real problem with Katrina was poor public services.

That's why Oregon is between us and Cali. The only good route north is I-5, and they run into a whole bunch of nothing coming up the east side of the Cascades. Most of the immigrants would probably give up before crossing the wastelands.

Let Seattle and Portland deal with it. Rather, I would expect many of the displaced SoCalites would prefer to head for Vegas or Tahoe/Reno rather than out in the middle of the nowhere I call home now.

Anyone who 'evacuated' to Vegas in a disaster deserves what they get, and what they get would be nothing. Vegas imports every single thing they provide or sell except sand and summer heat. All that would have to happen there is shutting off the water and that place would literally be a ghost town within three days.

But I'm sure some people would try it. But I would certainly love to be a fly on the wall when they did!

Sue

Yeah, I suspect folks in So Cal aren't going to let go of civilization very easily, and will latch onto any illusion they can in hopes of ignoring the reality of their situation. They wouldn't be the only ones I'm sure. I wonder, if the taps quit in Vegas, how many non-resident types would even think of heading for the Lake?

Long as they stay south of the 45th parallel or west of the Pacific Crest Trail I am okay with that. Sorry Sue.

Over here in Stupid Central... I must agree.

As to going to Lake Mead, some might think of it. But as for me... YUCK! It is just pure ugly! I doubt that anything would grow around it.

And the last time I spent any time there, my mother caught erysipelas and nearly died. The hospital couldn't diagnose it. Finally her doctor got back from Europe, looked at her, looked at her chart, and said, "Jesus! I haven't seen this since World War II!" (The doctor guessed that it started from an insect bite.)

Sue

Search the ETS boards for my posts on ThreatCon, DefCon, and HurrCon. Those are checklists that help to guide you on getting your readiness up as a situation gets more serious and to help guide you when the time to bug out or bug in has come.

As I read your draft lists, the sole dimension for reaction is the time or estimated time before an event happens. I think the drafts are a good start.

I would note: There are no decision-points for bug-out. There is ambiguity regarding the event dimensions of distance from you, severity of event, direction of travel of the event, known uig out limitations of local or regional roads, etcetera.

Certainly mathematical precision with all possible variables is not realistic, but you can know many of the most important variables, determine reliable sources for information about them, and consider when the bug-out should be the best decision.

I dont know it it was addressed or not, as I did not read the whole thread - but one disaster that, as well as Sue did, she did not address that would effect all of us. A Financial Disaster. Before everyone bites my head off for getting polital or what ever. If the cops arent getting paid then there wont be any cops to protect anyone. That can be said for nurses, firefighters, garbage colectors etc... If the grocery stores sell food but nobody got paid or what ever, then boys and girls, that spells disaster all across it. I personally look for an excuse to go to my Bug out place - it is very nice there. So I bug out when my paycheck is late or any of Sue's list.

Let's also look at this issue from the reverse point of view. If there is danger present - why on earth DON'T people flee? It seems like such an obvious thing to do.

One big answer appears to be that people get accustomed to certain kinds of threats. They have seen the warning signs of danger so many times before - and nothing serious actually happened. Here are two examples:

1) New Orleans during Katrina. Some people stayed in their homes, in spite of the evacuation. The reason was that they had lived through many hurricanes before, and always there were rumors that the levies could break. But no flooding ever actually happened. So because it was difficult to leave the city, or inconvenient, some people stayed.
2) Volcano slides (lahars): Same basic problem. There were people in Indonesia buried by one of those slides a few years ago. But they had seen many minor eruptions before, and thought this was just another false alarm. So they refused to leave their village.

On a personal basis ... people don't flee from immediate attack (or close threat) because:

1) They are frozen by the "Freeze, Flight or Fight" response. The first reaction is very powerful, especially under situations with high levels of fear or terror. People can't move.
2) They have seen dangerous things in video's, but have not experienced them in real life. Their mind becomes disconnected when they see the actual danger happening - it's the typical "this can't be happening to me" response. This particular danger is strong for young Americans and westerners ... who have been raised in a culture where they watch a lot of video's and movies.

cheers,
the other Pete

"If there is danger present - why on earth DON'T people flee? It seems like such an obvious thing to do."

I've asked that here more than once, and asked myself that about fifty times when I used to watch the news.

Not fleeing from the iffy things, like a volcano eruption, I can kinda-sorta understand. It may not happen. Maybe.

The hurricane-type things are probably due to complacency - "We've always survived it before". (I'm not including the poor in NOLA who didn't have much choice.)

But the ones who drive me absolutely crazy are the wildfire fools. There is a wildfire or a firestorm coming right at you, and you stand outside your house on the hill like you could actually DO something. Just plain stupid.

Also, of course, is the American Way of rushing to help people in trouble. Many people take advantage of this, and think a last-minute rescue is their right when the disaster hits full-blast and they suddenly change their tiny little minds and scream for help. They're putting other people's lives in danger, but they simply don't care about that. All they care about is what they want. Stupid. And I think we probably need to stop doing that.

Sue