OK...A new practice scenario. For this one we travel to the tip of tropical Florida.

Your company has you living in Miami. A cat 4-5 hurricane is predicted to hit the tip of Florida in 24-36 hours.

Assume for this exercise:

* A rented, furnished apartment
* Plenty of available cash
* A nice car
* Your ecd and BOB but not much more.


Go.

I would hope to have had more notice than 36 hours if the hurricane is that size, so I would have boarded up my windows and been on the road a few days beforehand.

If not, I'd grab my bag, cash, and whatever other supplies I could and take secondary roads north.

Flip on the tv in my hotel room 500 miles inland and watch the carnage. I would have left as soon as the "cone of uncertainty" for Miami was above 20%! That city is a madhouse.

-Blast

I'm out of there as fast as I get to my vehicle. There is no way that I'd try to ride it out, particularly if I live within sight of the ocean. That area is so flat that any kind of storm surge would kill thousands.

I'm with Blast on this one. A cat 4 or 5 is nothing to take chances with. If I lived there, my bags would be packed, plenty of cash available and car never allowed to get below 3/4 tank during June through November.

Unless I was unconscious and unable to move, I would have been a long time gone. A Cat. 4-5 is nothing to play with. Having ridden out a Cat. 2, I don't want to repeat that mistake. EDC, BoB, cash, food, clothes, wife and dog go into vehicle. Head north out of Florida. Exact destination unknown. Watch the Weather Channel and local media often. Listen to NOAA/NWS for updates. Once off the penninsula, I would make the decision as to the direction to travel.

The problem is more complicated than it looks. As a Florida resident for 19 years, I've been through my share of hurricanes including the eye of three category 3 storms passing over my house 2004-2005. You need to understand the geography of Southern Florida. There are two major roadways out of Miami (I-95 and the Turnpike). Both will be a parking lot 24 hours before the storm. If you can get out before then, do it. But, you need to be prepared to run out of gas somewhere south of Jacksonville and realize that the gas stations will likely be out as well. Hotel rooms in central Florida will be eaten up quickly and if you remember the path of Charlie, that's not a great idea anyway.

The forcast track (the cone of death as we like to call it down here) is quite inaccurate until 24 hours before the storm. If I had abandoned ship every time we were in the cone in 2004, I would have spent more time in Geogia than at home during the hurricane season.

That said, I am 5 miles inland and have less to worry about. Those on the water have no choice and generally bug out early.

My advice is to get out as early as your personal circumstances will allow and make provision to carry extra gasoline if you can.

Craig.

Fortunately I have a full tank and no reason to hesitate. Jump in car and drive to Valdosta, GA, ~500 miles from Key Largo. A storm that large would have been tracked for days previously, so by 24-36 prior to landfall I should already be in GA.

Close the apartment, get your most important valuables, fill the car with gas, and get the heck out of there.

Plenty of cash equals a direct flight to Phoenix, it is beautiful that time of the year...

Roger that. If I can't get a commercial flight I'm sure I can find something else. With enough cash, anything's possible.

First class too, or a Gulfstream...

Buy a proper bottle of Scotch, a first class malt like Laphroaig will do nicely, instead of the Cuban Whiskey, which is just awful. Worse than even the Cypriot Ouzo brew, which is used to clean the windows. The last hurricane I was in was called Irene. I was drunk. All I remember was the water dripping on my head in the dark sitting on the toilet, laughing, finding the whole situation highly amusing whilst finding the noise of the freight train outside actually quite comforting. I actually quite liked the WOOO, WOOO, WOOO sound. Reminded me of the weather back home in Scotland whilst having a holiday in Cuba. Only difference, the rain was nice and warm. Woke up the next morning to find a letter under the door advising me not to consume any alcohol during the hurricane. What did they know!!

While the entire time kicking yourself for waiting so long, rather than getting out of dodge 12 hours ago.

Having gone to college in Miami, and survived a couple of close by hurricanes, I find this interesting. When Andrew hit, I was in NY state, bailed out early.

I lived in a double wide trailer, and in a apartment (3 story concrete building) both near water. I had a very nearby rental storage unit that held my emergency supplies. At that time I owned a 24' trailered boat, that held 90 gal gas (kept full), 40 gal fresh water tank, and food storage. The plan was at 48 hours out to grab the GF, hook up the boat trailer, load up from the apartment, stop by the storage unit, and "get out of Dodge" heading for friends north. The boat fuel tanks were set up so I could siphon from them if needed.

I spend a lot of time in Houston, and have a well overbuilt homemade teardrop style trailer (6000# axle, 2-5/8 bulldog hitch) packed and ready as a mobile shelter. It has extra gas, water, food, and emergency supplies.

I always try to anticipate WHEN an evacuation will be ordered and LEAVE before the order is given.

If I get caught short, which happened once, I get prepared to bug out and then wait until the herd has gone by (watching the interstate from a discreet location) and then outrun the bugger with the roads open. This creates logistical problems, at times, depending on the size of the evacuation.

Has anyone at FEMA, or in the Congress ever considered requiring Interstate gas stations, or stations located on evacuation routes, to double the size of their fuel storage tanks??

"...requiring Interstate gas stations...to double the size of their fuel storage tanks??..."

That wouldn't make enough difference. I used to have to stand out on I-5 in central CA on the Wed. before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after (the two heaviest traffic days of the year), directing traffic off of the frwy and back on at one of the main fuel stops for about a hundred hundred miles. Every station there had tankers coming in several times a day, trying to keep up, and that was nothing like a mass evacuation. In a real traffic jams the tankers would be jammed up with everyone else...

OBG, where on earth did you work, Coalinga?

Sue

Yup, Coalinga. Home of the 1983 6.4 earthquake that destroyed a big chunk of the town, the 1991 Thanksgiving weekend I-5 dust crash (over 100 vehicles, 17 killed), the 1995 I-5 bridge collapse, (six killed when their vehicles went into a raging river). But only for twenty plus years.

You must have been there sometime in your past, got to smell the cattle at the second largest feed lot in the country...

Interesting reactions...

I note that few people wanted to change the rules. (i.e. I'd be long gone) But, for the exercise, you are assuming that you are still there.

There is a follow-up to this exercise, if anyone is interested

Teacher

You never ruled out joining the paniced mob trying to go north too late.