Husband, wife and kids are touring the country in their car when they hear of big disaster hitting their state or city. Say, its Katrina.

- What are your priorities, and how long can you survive as a 21st century nomad ( no home, and your vehicle is all you've got

- All your kids are with you, but your parents or a brother or sister is in the disaster zone. How far are you going to find out about them? Will you risk going back to ground zero for parents or brothers ?

- Do you usually prepare for possible disasters at home when you plan a trip ? And how ?

- Much of our survival assets are at home. A lot of money and time spent on them. Will you go back for them ? Also, do you think about the possibility of disaster when you are on your trip and thus intentionally take more of those items with you ??

Stay far, far, far away!

You won't help anyone trying to get out of ground zero by returning before it is safe. Your belongings are only material things, you have your family (wife/children) that is safe and sound and a vehicle (which is more than a lot of people had after Katrina hit).

Extend your vacation and call relatives out of the disaster area to check on the status of friends/family in the disaster area. This is where having a disaster plan comes into play.

Remember, there were no available hotel rooms within even adjacent states when Katrina hit, so don't try to go back.

Alternatively, look into your homeowners insurance policy and see what it covers in an emergency. Mine covers lodging expenses for displacement, I'm sure a call to your insurance agent would be very helpful.

This would also be a good time to prepare your vehicle emergency kit and add to it copies of insurance policies (besides vehicular), marriage license, etc. and back-up your family photos/data on the computer so that you can store them in your vehicle (inexpensive DVD-+R work well). Also make a home video of all of the rooms in your house (property) to document what you have in the home and mail it to a relative out of the state for "off-site safety storage" Do this once a year. This will prevent you from losing the things that are most valuable at home and will help you greatly when filing insurance claims if there is a total loss at home.

You can't protect everyone in your family, all the time, under all conditions. Take care of the ones you've got with you. Keep a list of out-of-area friends and relatives in other parts of the country with you when you travel. Ask if you could park there and put up your tent.

Going back to ground zero to find people is likely to be a big waste of time. All the gasoline, water and food you've got with you is probably all you're going to get. What do you intend to do when you run out?

From what I heard, all the roads to NOLA were blocked off. Even rescue people with good intentions couldn't get in. Are you planning on playing Big Man with that 19-yr-old National Guardsman with a rifle?

And where would you expect to find them, in a rocking chair on their front porch? Finding them could be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

They could be dead.
They could have evacuated.
They could have just moved to higher ground or one of many emergency shelters.
They could have gone to relatives/friends out of the immediate danger area.

If you have made plans for contacting members of your family in the event of a disaster, it seems that it would be better to wait for contact, then decide what to do. You could probably pay for bus/train/air fare from your end if they are without funds.

I usually take more stuff with me than I am likely to need. But if I do need it, I'm going to need it NOW.

Sue

When I go on a road trip, a lot of my survival gear is with me, there's more at home, but that's mostly food and water. No way would I go back to GZ. I'll just look for more food and water wherever.

I keep a 96 hour kit and a lot of gear in my truck because there's no guarantee I'll be at home when bad times come. However, odds are I'll be somewhere near my truck, even if I'm at the other end of the coast.

I am a solitary soul. There's no-one so dependant on me that I would automatically travel to rescue them in a situation like that. If I did get in touch with someone who needed help, that would be different.

I have credit cards. I would think I could survive a remote disaster indefinitely. I wonder if I am failing to understand your scenario. Can we not just check into a hotel and live off life savings for a while?

I might return and shelter-in-place, depending on the situation. I don't think I'd return, collect survival gear and then leave, unless it was convenient. I might return for irreplacable assets, and possibly for documentation such as my passport (which I don't normally have with me when travelling within the UK), if that seemed advisable.

When I travel, I don't carry extra gear with me to prevent it being lost by a disaster at home. I generally don't have enough spare space. I do carry what I think I need to survive if there is a disaster where I am - but that's pretty much what being on holiday means anyway.

I've gotten to where we take a lot of our stuff with us when we travel.
I have accounts at two banks, checking, savings, credit at each. If one bank or its atm's are down I can try the other, plus we carry a little bit of cash with us at all times. When we go I either take my laptop or my backup drive and each has copoies of all of our pictures and important documents so we have what we need there. We try to pack enough food and water for twice the planned time of the trip. I just bought a cap for my truck to be able to hold more gear as its becoming more and more like a small RV every day. I have a secondary electrical system now which powers a small 12v cooler as well as various comms gear and battery chargers for other gear, tools, food and other supplies stashed in various locations and such so we could live from it if we had to for an extended time.

I'd get a job somewhere quick, before the "refugees", "evacuees" ,"suckforthemees", or whatever the politically correct word is of the month, show up. My checking is in a big bank, so I'd hopefully be able to access it. I also make sure that I don't have any automatic payments from my checking account. Nothing like having all of your monthly bills paid on the 15th, and a major disaster hit on the 16th. Would have been nice if you had just wrote the checks and it took 2 days to get there, huh? Not saying you shouldn't pay your bills, but they always say, pay yourself first! <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I love the scenarios...

I think I could survive indefinately as a nomad in my truck.
I have camping supplies in the back often. There is the small bug-out-bag. Fishing rod and tackle. If I were traveling then there would be even more creature comforts packed there too.

I would wait for some type of contact with the family in the DZ before I blindly headed in for the rescue. I dont want to end up needing rescued myself.

I dont spend a lot of time preparing for problems before I leave. I put the food away, clean the dishes and make my bed. Double check that the water is not running, no candles lite and lock the doors.

After the dust settles, or while it is settling if I have reason to believe I can get them I may try.... but it will depend on what I see before I go.

I wouldn't worry too much about junk left at home. People left at home, of course I'd try to communicate with them and assist from a distance, but I think trying to enter the disaster zone myself would just make the problem worse. As for my own getting by, yeah, if I were far enough away I'd hope I had enough cash, credit cards etc. to manage for a while, and if there was some kind of emergency assistance activity going on where I was, I guess I'd see how I could help.