I just finished a 2007 book entitled "Fleeing Hitler: France 1940" about the more or less spontaneoous evacuation of Paris as the Germans were moving to take and occupy the city and surrounding areas.

While this scenario is unlikely today, many aspects of the book are eerily similar to what we've all read about and, from what you've written, some of you have experienced first hand.

Basically, the government didn't communicate honestly with its citizens; the rich bolted early but their cars broke down and ran out of gas; almost no one took what they really needed; families were separated; looting and worse; and on and on.

The book is an historical account rather than a manual on how to do it right but it makes for interesting reading.

Fleeing Hitler: France 1940
by Hanna Diamond
2007 Oxford University Press
ISBN 978-0-19-280618-5