public shelters:<br><br>picture your high-school gymnasium, now add 300 folding cots, Now add 500 shocked, confused, injured, displaced refugees who have just lost everything that means anything to them of all ages demanding why the authorities have let this happen to them and wanting to know why something hasn't already been done to fix the situation, Now add three days and the onset of extreme hunger due to lack of adequate food supplies, sleep deprivation due to over crowding and armed national guardsmen keeping the peace.<br><br>Caution this may be an exageration or not.<br><br>public shelters will be set up in any public building left structurally intact with a large enough interior space to house a few hundred cots or sleeping bags. They will be setup by the Red Cross and the National Guard probably in that order.<br><br>You will be housed and somewhat fed in this environment and when Uncle Sam sends in aid it will be showered on these locations first.<br><br>OTOH, if you are even remotely prepared with someplace to go that is outside the damage perimeter then you will be much more secure and comfortable even if you have to hike for a day or two to reach it. Some place like a friends place in a suburb, a cabin on a plot of land you might own that you can reach by 4X4 or Mountain bike, A cached camping supply in a self storage shed in a near-by suburb that you can reach by mountain bike and a pre-determined and evaluated camp-site in a suburban wood-lot or rail or highway right-of-way. All of these options would be preferrable to me over the shelter. At least until the aid starts to arrive from Uncle Sam. People in shelters will be much more amicable after they are getting well fed and there are obvious signs of an effort by Big Brother to set things right.<br><br>I'd rather dance with the wolves than try to sleep with the panicked sheep.