We were up near Boston this weekend. For those of you who didn't see, the Northeast was SLAMMED by heavy rains this past weekend.

Driving home on I-90, we were making great time...and then the traffic just stopped. For 4 miles, we just creeped along. We were at the "Highest Point on the Masspike" when it was clear that:

a) We had at least a few more miles of this horrible traffic
b) It was almost dinner time and my son (6) and daughter (2) were starting to scream for food.
c) The next exit was 16+ miles away, it was a Sunday night, after 5 PM, and we didn't know what - if anything would be open for a dinner stop.

No problem. Just pulled the car over into this nice turn-out area on the right, opened one of the emergency kits, pulled out the butane stove, a couple of cans of "Dinty Moore" beef stew, a gallon of water, and a package of crackers. Got out the camp kitchen items - bowls, cups, lexan utensils, cooked up dinner right on the back of the mini-van, sat, relaxed, got a visit from a state trooper checking in on us, chatted with him a while, ate a good meal, has some granola bars for dinned, cleaned up, and got back into traffic. We had enough food left to do three more meals on the go like that if we needed to.

Turned out that the right lane had been washed away from the storm, they were rebuilding it as we passed by - water was stil roaring off the hillside. Dangerous work! We sat in traffic a total of 3 hours, not much, when you compare it to the Houston evacuation, but still more than we wanted. The kids thought it was "silly" to cook in the car like that, but that actually helped calm them down a bit.
Not an "emergency" in any sense of the word, but a creature comfort issue.