Hello to everyone,

first of all, I’d like to apologize for any oddness in my writing as I’m not a native English speaker.
I’m a longtime lurker here on ETS (for almost 10 years I think) and I’ve always found your discussions very interesting, useful… and entertaining!
I’m an Italian editor/author. My writing focus mostly on geography and travel (mainly educational manuals and tourist guides), but lately I’ve decided to try my luck with fiction, and I’m currently doing research for a novel. I envision it primarily as techno-thriller, but at least one major plot point involves the topics of survival/preparedness discussed here at ETS, so I resolved to ask for the assistance of you ETS members and benefit from your collective wisdom.
I also hope that the my questions could turn into a useful thought experiment for you fellow members.

- The plot point I’d like to discuss involves two main characters, let’s call them Character A and Character B.

- Character A lives in a lake house in the Adirondacks area, Upstate NY. Let’s presume she’s an avid reader of the ETS forums like myself (or an equivalent community…) so, though she moved in the region only recently, she made sure to have her basics covered regarding preparedness: she has enough food, water, power (solar and a generator) and means to defend herself (firearms) to bug in for weeks or even months in case of a major disruption.

- Charatcter B is a person dearly loved by Character A (think spouse, fiancée, son/daughter as you deem appropriate). She lives and works in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The two therefore don’t live together full time, but Character A menages to stay with Character B in her city apartment for about a week every month, and likewise they stay together one week a month in the lake house. Their usual route when they visit each other, either way, is Lake House-Albany by car and Albany-NYC by Amtrak (can anyone suggest a more practical-common route, for the sake of realism?).

- Character A has talked Character B into making some preparations in case of emergency. She keeps a GHB in her office (small backack or purse; she commutes to work by foot or subway and doesn’t have access to a vehicle during office hours). They established a bugout plan from NYC for Character B and chose a location off city where Character A would come pick up Character B and take her to the relative safety of the lake house.

- Now that we have laid down the context, let’s get to the action! It’s a usual morning on a weekday: Character B is at work in an office building in Manhattan, Character A is having breakfast at the lake house, when a major SHTF event happens in Manhattan. Please envision something at least equivalent to 9/11, and likewise man-made, not a natural disaster. It could be a series of huge explosions in significant and very crowded locations (Times Square, Wall Street etc.) or a series of attacks by well armed individuals like the past terrorist attacks in Mumbai or Paris. Victims could be numbered in the hundreds or thousands.

- As soon as the news of the attack spreads, A and B manage to get in touch by phone and they agree that B must get off the city as soon as possible. They confirm the location of the meeting point and agree to keep in touch at regular intervals. At the lake house, A loads her truck with the essentials (gas, BOB, firearms, etc) and sets off south to randez-vous with her loved one.

- But it’s not over: mere tens of minutes after the first SHTF event, another, possibly related event knocks down the power grid in most of the New York City area (a cyberattack?).

So, my questions are the following:

- how would you play the bugout of B from Manhattan? Would she try to get off dodge by train, bus, boat, foot? Trains would be likely knocked off service by the power outage.

- which location would you choose for the meeting point between B, who is bugging out, and A, who is rushing south from Upstate to pick her up? Some place in New Jersey? Yonkers? Must be a place along a major route, but not so much that the flood of the evacuation compromises A&B chances of returning safely north by car.

-Would the cell network continue to work after a widespread power outage, thanks to the backup generators of the towers? And if so, for how long do you expect them to keep working?

- Suppose you are A. You haven’t been able to communicate with B, by call or text, for some time now. You finally get to the meeting location and B doesn’t show up. Would you wait in place, or would you try to search for B further along the route she was supposed to follow?

This is by no means an exhaustive list of relevant questions on the subject. Please feel free to add your opinions or suggestions if you like.

Thank you very much!

Some immediate thoughts:

“how would you play the bugout of B from Manhattan? Would she try to get off dodge by train, bus, boat, foot? Trains would be likely knocked off service by the power outage.”

How you get there is depends on where you are going, from the scenario, I assume the mountain location is on the west side of the Hudson River, so staying on that side of the river would be a good idea. Means of travel is open---the scenario does not give enough facts to decide, but I would assume a boat would be a good means, as that was the primary means of travel north from NYC in 18th Century New York State.

“which location would you choose for the meeting point between B, who is bugging out, and A, who is rushing south from Upstate to pick her up? Some place in New Jersey? Yonkers? Must be a place along a major route, but not so much that the flood of the evacuation compromises A&B chances of returning safely north by car.”

Depends on where they are located and the relative distances. No one answer without geographical facts and means of transport by both parties. You need both locations to figure out a good meeting point. New Jersey and Yonkers are out of the question. Look along the Hudson River. If its so bad as you describe, traveling by car may be out of question.

“Would the cell network continue to work after a widespread power outage, thanks to the backup generators of the towers? And if so, for how long do you expect them to keep working?”

It depends—author decides. I would assume no cell communications.

“Suppose you are A. You haven’t been able to communicate with B, by call or text, for some time now. You finally get to the meeting location and B doesn’t show up. Would you wait in place, or would you try to search for B further along the route she was supposed to follow?”

Wait for a while, but don’t go looking. B knows 2 places, where you were supposed to meet, and where the “safe” place is. Going looking, while dramatic, just lowers the chance of meeting up. Assume B if missing the meeting, will head for the ultimate destination.

I think it would be helpful if you sat down and did a study of a Google map of New York State. New York State is about half the size of Italy, so relative locations mean a lot---a great deal of territory to cover.

i think the key issue .. is what the authorities tell the residents of Manhatan. if the authorities tell people that the crisis is manageable, and most people decide to stay in their homes, then your character MIGHT make it out. Maybe.

But if there is widespread fear and panic, then your character has ZERO chance of evacuating ... because millions of other New Yorkers will jam all of the escape routes.

In my opinion, NO large US city, and probably no large city in the world, can be evacuated in a short period of time. Few people seem to realize this .. but it's a nasty reality.

Therefore ...

1. Your character must have an extremely unusual way to get out. for example, a person with a helicopter.

2. or alternatively, your character never makes it out, and fights a running battle for survival inside the city.

Either option is good for your story.

Please see ..

a. Real accounts of what happened when authorities tried to evacuate Houston before Hurricane Rita. It was a huge mess.

b. The scenes of evacuation in the movie "War Of The Worlds" with Tom Cruise.

c. What happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Even to this day, there are residents of that city who are still bitter about the emergency response by the Government.

Human beings don't handle panic very well. it turns into very ugly behavior.

Your character is going to have to be an exceptional human being, or they really might not make it.

Good luck with your story.

Pete

I have worked in midtown and down town Manhattan since the late 80s, so I have put some thought into a scenario such as this. I experienced the power outage in 1996 (IIRC), 9-11 and Sandy. Here are a few of my observations on each of those.

Power outage: Traffic gridlocked in about 20-30 minutes. I was on 46th Street, near Times Square. No cops directing traffic. Probably busy elsewhere. (but some homeless guys started directing traffic in areas and did a passable job). Port Authority bus terminal canceled all buses out within 30 minutes of lights out. Most skyscrapers have some backup power. At least enough to keep one or two elevators operating. Some had full power for lights, AC, etc. Very few New Yorkers carry flashlights. Traffic coming into the city was forbidden for a time.

9-11: I was 50 miles north of the city. About four hours after the second tower went down, I was called to active duty by my Reserve Unit and told to report to South Street, a stone's throw from the towers. FDR Drive and West Side Highway were both shut down. By National Guard. With Humvees and crew-served weapons. Heavily armed NYPD forces were visible too. Canal Street was a dividing line for a while. Nobody was allowed south of there (unless they lived there I think). That was enforced by heavily armed NYPD and National Guard.

Superstorm Sandy: I lived in the city for this one. My ARES (ameteure radio emergency services) group was asked to volunteer to provide communications for the Red Cross. Wind and fire had disables most of the cell towers and public service UHF/VHF repeaters at Breezy Point and some other areas of Queens. We have portable repeaters. NYPD probably does too. Based strictly on my observations in Brooklyn, maybe 10-15 percent of the gas stations had backup generators. Gas distribution became a problem within a day.

Since Sandy, the phone companies have made major improvements in backup power for cell towers. Some have generators, others battery backup. I imagine in the next crisis, cell service will be dependable for 48 hours, then begin to degrade slowly. But in all three of these events, cell service was reduced to texting because of the increased load on the system.

As has been mentioned earlier, the authorities have the capability to shut down cell service to all or parts of the city at will.

I have come to the conclusion that if you are going to bug out of Manhattan, you had better do it at the first sign of trouble. Otherwise, you are pretty much stuck. Trains and buses are out of the question. I don't know how many trains, if any, are diesel powered these days, but signals and switching would be knocked out when the power goes out. Bugging out by car would be a problem if you decide to bug out when everyone else does. You either go early or wait it out. Boat might be doable. I have a sailboat in Brooklyn. I asked the opinion of some NYPD officers I know. They all asked the same question. "How far do you live from your boat?" Five miles as the crow flies. They all gave the same assessment. "It won't be there when you get to the slip."

I suppose your character could keep a small foldable or inflatable boat stashed somewhere and make it across the Hudson to New Jersey. That is the way I would go if I had to bug out of Manhattan. Get across the river ASAP. But you are on foot when you get there. Then you need to get out of Jersey and back to American soil as soon as possible. You can get into PA or upstate from there. Maybe follow the Palisades Parkway north. The Appalachian Trail crosses the Palisades just north of the New Jersey line, and intersects other hiking trails. You may want to get away from the major routes if people are fleeing and fighting over bottles of water and packages of jerky. The population density drops more quickly as you move away from the city if you get across the Hudson. The Yonkers route keeps you in urban territory for too long. And there are some pretty rough neighborhoods there in the best of times. Mount Vernon, Yonkers and a couple of other places are dodgy enough during normal times. Maybe pick Bear Mountain, near West Point, as a rendezvous place. Or farther northeast to Port Jervis. Both are near major transportation routes, but far enough from the city. They are also near large state parks that are undeveloped. Allows you to move, but stay out of sight of the major roads.

Finally. I would stay at the rally point and wait for B. Maybe short, half day forays to better asses the situation and gather intel. But there are too many variables to hope to find her by retracing what you assume her route will be. She may have had to opt for a different route.

Yes,I imagine the safe house around Saranac Lake, so it makes sense to make it to the "right" side of the river as soon as possible.



A is around Saranac Lake and has a SUV. B will probably stranded on foot.



That's my recollection to. To go looking for a specific person in such heavily populated area would be like seaching for the proverbial needle in the haystack and would reduce the chanches of survival for both.



I'm actually doing it. I'm kind of osbessed with geography, due in part to my job, but no amount of study on a map can substitute for the actual experience of those who live in the area or know it well first hand. So I'm very grateful to all of you, please keep up with suggestions!

The incident I would describe would be extremely serious but not very widespread, as will be limited to downtown Manhattan. Something similar to 9/11. As for the power outage, I don't think a mass evacuation was ever ordered for one (but please correct me if I'm wrong). I think the autorithes would try to maintain the order by telling people to remain in their homes. On the other hand, the police may try to enforce a curfew, telling people to vacate the streets of certain neighborhoods to facilitate the hunt for the attackers.




I hear you on this. I live in a very urbanized part of Italy, and any major disturbance would result in a terrible mess in my area. Personally, I would prefer to bug in but, if things really call for buggin out,I would try to make it through mountain paths to the border with Switzerland, about 15 miles from my home.



Thank you very much!

That's very interesting, I was wondering if the bus service would keep running during a power outage.




That's another problem for A in case he tries to close to the city in search of B. My characters chanches of having an happy ending are getting slimmer by the hour!



Exactly what I was thinking.



I agree on this. But waiting for a loved one to show up would be nerve-racking for my character, and that might push him to do something really stupid.

Thank you very much!

I haven't lived in Manhattan for almost thirty years but I still have family and visit frequently. A few thoughts:

Your character will need really good shoes and be in shape to do a lot of walking -- subways and surface transit will go down almost immediately. A bicycle is better.

Getting to the mainland from midtown or downtown would be challenging on foot; I think that the Third Avenue Bridge would be my top choice.

Historically New Yorkers have done very well coming together in crisis situations -- I suggest that your story have compelling reasons on why that isn't happening.

A bicycle is the way to go. New Yorkers do seem to come together in crisis. Maybe have a bike messenger (there are a few in Manhattan) assist with B's escape/journey out of town. Maybe help with a flat tire and then route planning.

Note: I've never had a flat tire on my bike, so I've never had to fix a flat on the side of a bike path -- but I don't ride skinny road tires. I rode 2" slicks in DC; I highly recommend them for any commute where potholes & cobblestones are common, and where curbs may become obstacles.

Thank you very much for your perspective, but please let me clarify this point: my story doesn't necessarily have to portrait a total breakdown, a mass evacuation or scenes of panic and violence. As I said in my first post, this would be only an episode in the whole narrative. I'm not trying to write a survival or apocalyptic novel. What I'm asking is what do you think would realistically happen given the circumstances I described (a terrorist attack followed by a power outage).
The decision of B to bug out immediately doesn't necessarily imply a critical situation (i.e. a total evacuation of the city). I'm still working on this, but B may have been urged in bugging out by some foreknowlegde of A that things may be getting worse in the following hours, not only in NYC but other US locations as well.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions, please keep up!