OK, I think we're all pretty well shocked by the New Orleans response (or lack of it).
Sit down and put on your seatbelts, because you won't like what I have to say in this post.
First of all, I'm a firefighter, I'm trained in disaster response, and we've had two declared Federal Disasters (floods) in my protection district in the last year.
I'm currenty NOT in New Orleans or anywhere else because - like thousands of others, I've not gotten through the maze of paperwork and authorizations needed. As those without the authorizations have learned, you'll be turned back at checkpoints without them. As it turns out, the firefighters who HAVE made it to New Orleans and the evacualtion points have been HANDING OUT BROCHURES. Many have simply turned around and come home. See the forums at
www.firehouse.com for some real sorry stories. The frustration level among responders is VERY high.
So, back to the subject of this post. I've been in contact with people in Mississippi and Alabama. All your 72 hour planning is wrong. A lack of an evacuation order does not mean you're safe. Towns six miles inland are flooded and NO help has arrived at all - and no help will arrive.
The billions and billions spent on equipment for homeland security are exactly like folks on this list spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on high end equipment, guns, knives, tents, stoves and so forth - without ever testing it out until it's needed. As it turns out, like in a small scale situation you might be in, as well as a large scale situation, the best survival resource is brains, not stuff.
The fact that the NIMS (national incident managment system) wasn't even implemented - or that the NIMS organizational structure wasn't worked out ahead of time is the most shameful thing of all. Here we have a nation of emergencyh response agencies, all able to interoperate on some level, and all it needed was to establish a NIMS tree...
Which leads me to the 96 hours. You're on your own for 96 hours, not 72. Maybe more. New Orleans was a SMALL city - only the 24th largest in the USA. (see list:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html). Places like Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Ind. are larger cities.
Now consider if you are in the 250 mile radius of one of the top 20 largest cities - which are:
New York, N.Y.
Los Angeles, Calif.
Chicago, Ill.
Houston, Tex.
Philadelphia, PA
Phoenix, Ariz.
San Diego, Calif
San Antonio, Tex
Dallas, Tex.
San Jose, Calif.
Detroit, Mich.
Indianapolis, Ind.
Jacksonville, Fla.
San Francisco, Calif.
Columbus, Ohio
Austin, Tex.
Memphis, Tenn.
Baltimore, Md.
Fort Worth, Tex.
Charlotte, N.C.
Now consider this little tidbit - the NYC Subway system carries 4.8 million people a DAY - that's over TWICE the number of people who evacuated New Orleans.
The Chicago Transit Authority carries about 3 million riders a day - a million more than the New Orleans evacuated population.
The fact is, that if something hits these places, there's NOTHING THAT THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES CAN DO FOR AT LEAST 5 DAYS. Even then, they seem so mired in paperwork and nonsense that it's time to just ignore them and develop localized plans of action that render you autonomous for 5 full days - which means that you don't really NEED anything from anyone else, so you can participate in helping others who need help. Obviously, thing 1 is water - and plenty of it. Assume that any standing water you find is contaminated to the point of lethality. Assume also that without advanced water PURIFICATION (not filtration - PURIFICATION) you can't fix the problem. Chemical contamination is a very, very dangerous thing. That means lugging water. That means transportation. That means wheels of some sort - a wagon, a shopping cart, a wheelbarrow, a luggage cart - something you can roll along, with nice big wheels (a bike trailer for a baby is a GREAT option, because you can't carry 15 gallons of water for long - and you'll need 15 gallons of water for your family to make it 96 hours. Forget sanitation water, you'll be dirty. Keep your butt clean (baby wipes are very helpful) and worry about your hands, but don't waste water on bathing. Don't bring food that needs dishes - if you can't eat it from the container with only a fork, or better yet, just eat it right out of the container, you're wasting your time and energy. Winter is coming, keeping WARM for 5 days is a BIG PROBLEM. Think about it - would you rather sit in the dark, warm, or sit in a well-lit place thanks to your LED lantern with 4 "D" batteries - and freezing your butt off. I'll take dark and warm.
Re-think what it means to loose your home and everything in it. 500,000 people in New Orleans left last week and all they have is gone. All of it. What does that mean to you? What do you want to have? Where is it? How fast can you get to it? How far can you walk with it?
This is serious stuff, because, as I suspect will happen, the folks in Saudi Arabia are watching the news closely, and they see that the USA does not really have much in the way of Homeland Security, as we've learned in the last week. Imagine what a mess if NY, Chicago and SFO all got hit with a bio-weapon or nuke the same day. Just imagine.
Now imagine you need to "go" - where do you go, there's no fuel, major roads are closed or just gone...
What's your plan? I'll be honest, I've tossed out some items from my kit that I thought would be "handy" and replaced it with a Mossberg 500 Cruiser and 100 rounds of ammo. I've also re-packed everything to fit in a radio flyer "wagonbarrow" (which they don't make anymore) with some room for my 2 year old daughter.
Here's a good alternative to the wagon barrrow:
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/s...mp;amp;R=208007It's not quite "long term survival" (what good would a basement bunker be in New Orleans?) but I think that the days of the 72-hour kit are over.
So, my operative principles are:
Mobility & Autonomy for 5 full days.