Check w/ JC Whitney or a local body shop on the sliding window. It might be as cheap going this route as the junk yard after you figure in your time to find & go get it.

Eugene: "..whether or not those in charge can take things you bring with you to distribute to those without."

That seems to be a frequent worry, but I've never heard of it happening. They may be happy enough that you're not a drain on the supplies, and it's hard to see how one person or even a family could bring enough stuff that it would be worth the confrontation.

Coastie09: "If you need to provide all that equipment on your own, it sounds like going to a shelter is useless..."

While most of us here would probably avoid the shelters if possible, many people that have the 'stuff' might be too scared to go it alone, despite the disadvantages. And if you're facing something that requires a shelter (hurricane, tornados), you may need the actual shelter, and when the event is over, you can leave with your gear.

KC2IXE: "...they get a truck to go from B to A with food and TP, and back with cots."

Have you ever seen where the trucks couldn't get through? I'm thinking earthquake debris, high water, etc.

MajorMarv: "Susan do you recommend the book ?"

Overall, yes. There's stuff and methods that we at ETS think of as SOP, that she doesn't cover, so I wouldn't say it's a what-&-how-to bible, but it does cover a lot. The people new to preparedness would have a lot of good information laid out for them in a reasonable order. I would buy it if I could afford it ($40USD).

Re: the pickup trailer. My brother wants to put together one of these. Other than the advantage of cannibalization, it seems there are better ways to go. I've camped in the back of a pickup with a shell. It's not too bad for one person, if you have a 24-30" wide piece of plywood from side to side behind the cab for gear, but for family, no.

If you look at one of those trailers that have a flat floor without the wheelwells, there is no comparison in floor space. And if you customized it with folddown bunks and storage, you could carry an incredible amount of gear AND house your whole family. And if your tow vehicle had a camper shell on it, you could carry even more.

Sue, who drools over race car trailers...

Blast - I lived on the gulf coast of Florida for most of my life and have both bugged out and hunkered down for hurricanes over the years but now I'm in Northern Alabama and far enough from the coast that hunkering down is the most likely senario for me. Now one of my biggest concerns is my small town being invade by those who are trying to bug out and your map idea is great. Thanks for sharing!

[quote=Susan]
Re: the pickup trailer. My brother wants to put together one of these. Other than the advantage of cannibalization, it seems there are better ways to go. I've camped in the back of a pickup with a shell. It's not too bad for one person, if you have a 24-30" wide piece of plywood from side to side behind the cab for gear, but for family, no.

If you look at one of those trailers that have a flat floor without the wheelwells, there is no comparison in floor space. And if you customized it with folddown bunks and storage, you could carry an incredible amount of gear AND house your whole family. And if your tow vehicle had a camper shell on it, you could carry even more.

[quote]

One of the reasons I had to move up to a full size truck was because of having a family, the small/mid sized extended cab didn't have enough room for the car seats in the back and the quad cab small/mid sized trucks have a real short bed and an extended cab full size has more cab space and gets the same mpg. The plus side on the full size is the bed is 6.5' long which makes it bood for sleeping in and I have 4' between the wheelwells so two can sleep side by side easily. I measued my queen mattress at home and its 52" wide, our full size in the spare room is 48 so a full size truck bed is equivalent to a full size (sleeping) bed. So its comfortable for two adults and if we did have to evac/shelter sometime in the near future I would probably have my 1 year old sleep in his car seat, he has slept in it on long trips before so its wouldn't be any different. Either that or move the gear from under the back seat and it lifts giving a flat floor there. If its not hurricane weather then we put up the tent and set up his pack and play like we did camping last summer (which I used as a stealth evac/bug out test and have another planned in a couple months).

Blast,

I remembered what happened here at the Dallas end of the evacuation. When people arrived, their cars were nearly out of gas so they needed to fill up when they got here. Before they left, they filled up again. The downside is that many stations ran out of gas that weekend due to the extra demand. Since that time, I've always driven off the top half of the tank rather than let it go empty.

I'm just grateful that Rita turned east at the last minute. The original forecast had they eye pass over DFW while still packing Category 1 or 2 force. I doubt that we would have handled the situation as those on the coast who are more experienced.

BTW - if you ever need to get out of dodge, let me know. We'll let you camp out with the family in the backyard (but only if you let me play with all of your cool gear)

- Brian

Sounds like a winning deal to me! Running to someplace closer than Minnesota would be a good thing. Hopefully we'll never need to outrun a hurricane but like they say, "never is a very long time".

-Blast

I'm as far away as Ohio and we had gas stations run out of gas that very weekend. Had a couple raise the price to over $3 per gallon the day before the hurricane hit, I made a note of those and never buy gas from them.
I poured my 4 gallon can into my truck then went and topped it off and refilled the 5 gallon can that night before it hit but I need to get some decent gas cans, the cheap blitz things in all the hardware stores leak too mucm.

IMHO, a public shelter is the last place I would want to go in an emergency. If you come properly equipped, then it is likely you will not be admitted in an emergency without at least identifying all your provisions to whoever is in charge, and run the risk of them being confiscated sooner or later in a "Triage" environment, where you either give up the goods or get kicked out, maybe without them anyways. This may not be the program at the shelters now, but it is a plausible enough probability that I would not take the risk. I've seen firsthand how it works elsewhere. What are the advantages of a public shelter over a private one?

Well, maybe you will have better access to certain services, provided there is a doctor or two and some nurses that are in the shelter with you, and they have the supplies they need to do their work. Likely there will also be a greater exposure to communicable disease, and there's no way of knowing the condition of the supplies you would be relying on. Then there's the security issue, do you really think they will let you bring a firearm into the shelter with you?

I would rather find a suitable location myself and make my own shelter and equip it as I see fit. Then if TSHTF, I am not relying on whether or not someone else knew what they were doing and could take care of business.

If anything was ever made perfectly clear by katrina it's DONT BECOME A REFUGEE. Plan ahead a way out and a place to go, find a state park or campground that you can pitch a tent and camp out anything but stay at a shelter run by any .gov branch or red cross. You will be stuck with people you dont know anything about the guy next to you could be a convicted murderer or child rapist or welfare bum or aids and tb infected psyco for all you know and as the old saying goes ya gotta sleep sometime. If you take medication it may be confiscated by whoevers in charge for the greater good, that goes for food and personal items also. You could wake up and half your stuff or your wife or kids missing. I know some people that worked in the shelters that katrina people were evacuated to here in San Antonio and they all said they would never subject themselves to that ever again, everything from people demanding diffrent food to the fact that men and boys or women and girls never went to the bathrooms alone for safety sakes. If I cant stay where I'm at then I'll pick the place I go and will feel safe and secure at.

If you did get admitted with all of your gear, security in those things ain't always the greatest and you better be willing to defend whats your's. I have worked around "shelters" both here and overseas and there is always a few who are willing to bully everyone and very few to stand against them. My advice do what ever it takes to stay away from them.