I may have a problem with people who don't have cars expecting to catch a lift in mine. Or I may not. Can't know for sure until and unless such a situation arises.
A very good point Dagny but i think the fact you are on here and are thinking about the problem and you have a plan you are on the way to bugging out before others even think of bugging out. You just need to spot the threat early and consciously make the decision to put your plan into action. If you can do that you will be bugging out nice and early with the minimum of fuss before the panic of the masses.
If you can do this you will also be better placed to help someone in your community that you feel would benefit from your help, even if it is drive someone to a safer place and drop them at a red cross clearing station or the like, at least they will be there early and will probably be moved up the chain before the station is inundated with the panic of the masses.
In survival by having a plan you have made the first steps to being rescued. In disasters by having a plan you have made the first steps to surviving and limiting the damage for when it comes to rebuilding your life.
It certainly is better to have done some thinking, planning and preparing. Hopefully, if a crisis occurs, I will have now the instinct to prioritize basic needs: shelter-water-food. But the more you learn in this arena the more daunting it all seems -- evacuation or sheltering-in.
On a normal day within the Beltway, there is only a four-hour window (10:00a-2:00p) in which you can be reasonably hopeful (not confident, merely hopeful) that you are not going to run into traffic jams. The normal routine outgoing traffic jams -- bumper-to-bumper crawling traffic -- start around 2:30p and go until 7:00p.
The Potomac River cuts this metro area in half -- choke points at every bridge. And another complication, which I have not done nearly enough to prepare for, is that a post-9/11 emergency preparedness initiative in this city makes Pennsylvania Avenue a wall. In a mass evacuation, civilian traffic is not to be allowed to cross Pennsylvania Avenue. Pennsylvania Avenue is to be kept clear for emergency vehicles.
Those on the north side -- which is most residents and most downtown private office buildings -- will be forced to evacuate north through Maryland (bad neighborhoods between me and Maryland). This is not only a concern to me but will be a nightmare for a lot of Virginians who work in DC. One wonders how civilians will react if that policy is put into action in an emergency. On 9/11, many people left their cars at work and walked across Pennsylvania Avenue, several miles to their homes in Virginia and Maryland.
Given a choice, staying home is preferable. Evacuation in any scenario would be extremely stressful.
Previous Topic
Index
