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#188590 - 11/18/09 11:02 PM Re: Survival Trailer [Re: Dagny]
Scottpre21 Offline
Stranger

Registered: 11/17/09
Posts: 2
Hi All,

I have some questions about the Survival Trailers.

1- During an evacuation aren't we competing with every other person attempting to evacuate as well? Are local roads able to handle such congestion?

2- The average range for most cars/trucks is somewhere around 300 miles per tank, give or take. That's enough to go from Seattle to Portland, for example. But what happends after that?

3- What's the longest duration you feel you can live out of a trailer ebfore you need to resupply?

I like the idea, I'm just curious about some of the issues.

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#188598 - 11/19/09 12:08 AM Re: Survival Trailer [Re: Scottpre21]
Dagny Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 11/25/08
Posts: 1918
Loc: Washington, DC

1. Yep and nope. Evacuation would be intense and our roads are inadequate for a normal rush hour. A little trailer won't make much difference. I have the advantage of storing my trailer 100 miles from the city, near the mountains. And my car, a Honda Element, is a camping mobile.

2. Some have gas cans. Hopefully it's a localized situation and there will be gas 300 miles away. Or 200 miles. In an emergency that I'd envision, 100 miles will be a good distance.

3. My teardrop trailer is just for sleeping and gear hauling. Food is kept in the car. I'd be throwing everything I have in my house kitchen that I could fit in the car. I could live comfortably for a month, food-wise. My dog has an even longer supply. Of course, the supply needs expand exponentially with a family.






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#188792 - 11/21/09 12:33 AM Re: Survival Trailer [Re: Dagny]
MoBOB Offline
Veteran

Registered: 09/17/07
Posts: 1219
Loc: here
One little note: Be sure to account for extensive idling times. That will cut down on you range considerably: 100 miles may be the maximum comfortable range.

$.02 worth
_________________________
"Its not a matter of being ready as it is being prepared" -- B. E. J. Taylor

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#189783 - 12/03/09 02:20 AM Re: Survival Trailer [Re: MoBOB]
Jakam
Unregistered


I have a Roadtrek van, so all self contained for living, but have been looking at enclosed trailers to carry extra water, fuel, and food (and cat litter).

The one thing I keep running into is weight of the trailer and what it can carry versus weight of the fuel and water (and litter).

I keep crunching the numbers, and for what I would lose in mpg it doesn't make sense to go too big.

Naturally, the Roadtrek only gets about 11-12 mpg fully loaded ( full water tanks, geared up). With a more efficient truck and a big trailer the numbers may get better.

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#189790 - 12/03/09 03:00 AM Re: Survival Trailer [Re: ]
Dagny Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 11/25/08
Posts: 1918
Loc: Washington, DC

Are you sure the Roadtrek's mileage would be much worse?

Seems gas guzzlers don't guzzle much more pulling. At least not a teardrop. Smaller engines, like my Element, take a significant hit on fuel mileage.

Love those Roadtreks. They are space-efficient. Which one do you have?



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#189802 - 12/03/09 11:43 AM Re: Survival Trailer [Re: Dagny]
Eugene Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 12/26/02
Posts: 2995
Originally Posted By: Dagny

3. My teardrop trailer is just for sleeping and gear hauling. Food is kept in the car. I'd be throwing everything I have in my house kitchen that I could fit in the car. I could live comfortably for a month, food-wise. My dog has an even longer supply. Of course, the supply needs expand exponentially with a family.


You may have thought about this already and just didn't post it as not relavant but to throw everything from the house kitchen into a car can take a loooong time. It may be wise to prepack some items so speed that process.
Before I moved I had a set of shelves along one side of my garage with one being the same height as the tailgate of my truck. I could open the garage door, back up and slide some prepacked plastic totes right into the back. Those were my food pantry, i'd buy canned goods on sale and pack them in those plastic bins and pull a couple cans out at a time to put in the kitchen cabinet. I just put things like can openers in the top of each so if I took them we had what we needed already and didn;t have to hunt through the kitchen to find things.

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#189828 - 12/03/09 03:37 PM Re: Survival Trailer [Re: Eugene]
Dagny Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 11/25/08
Posts: 1918
Loc: Washington, DC
Originally Posted By: Eugene
Originally Posted By: Dagny

3. My teardrop trailer is just for sleeping and gear hauling. Food is kept in the car. I'd be throwing everything I have in my house kitchen that I could fit in the car. I could live comfortably for a month, food-wise. My dog has an even longer supply. Of course, the supply needs expand exponentially with a family.


to throw everything from the house kitchen into a car can take a loooong time.



Yeah, I have considered that. It takes 60-90 minutes to load the car for tent camping. Of course, I'd be a good bit more motivated in an emergency.

I live smack in the middle of the Beltway. Unless I happen to be up at 3:00a and have the radio or TV on when an evacuation is ordered, I'm not going to have any advantage in speeding out of here. Seconds won't count.

The suburbanites and outer core residents are going to clog the roads from here to Richmond, Charlottesville, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania (depending on what happens) before I get anywhere near the Beltway.

So I'll take the time to pack what we'd need for a couple weeks. We have several coolers so my plan is to expeditiously throw as much as possible into those. With camping gear already in the mountains and a fair amount permanently in the car, the next priority would be water, dog food, clothes, bikes.

In the Mad Max scenarios, evacuation likely will be a moot point. The remotely plausible evacuation situations would be a hurricane heading toward the Bay, in which case there would be some notice (ala a brief Hugo concern in '89), dirty bomb or bio-chem attack.


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#189837 - 12/03/09 06:46 PM Re: Survival Trailer [Re: Dagny]
Jakam
Unregistered


I have a 1999 Versatile 190, Dodge Ram 3500, for the 10 years I've had it, very few problems, except brakes, and the front end.
For the coach components, the fridge and a/c struggle with AZ summer days, and the heater struggles with AZ winter nights, but all in all a great vehicle- les than 20 feet, so I can take it places a regular RV can't go.
I replaced the TV/VCR combo with a digital flat screen and so now have the extra storage space where the boxy old tv was stored.
I just replaced all of the regular coach lights with LED's, so I can go several days on battery.
Great generator, good fresh and waste water systems, comfortable full size bed, and drives like a van.

I hauled a U-Haul fully loaded with the RV tanks empty from here to San Fran last year, lost about 4 mpg, but that is an uphill haul, I guess.

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