Man, needing to bug out to someplace hundreds of miles away and live off of stored supplies for 2-3 months with 8 people is seriously into TEOTWAWKI territory. Yeah, Mississippi might be messed up for that long, but once you can get to hundreds of miles away, either things will be relatively normal there (you can get supplies easily though you still need a place to sleep) or else things will be massively hell and not much of anything will hold together. Also, everyone in the agreement is likely to want to bug out at the same time, so the fuel you thought they stored for you, they're going to need for themselves, etc.

Geocaching keys to your homes seems kind of a pain. If you're talking about just a dozen or so keys total, just exchange them ahead of time. Geocaching larger items like 20 gal of fuel sounds much harder and I'd be interested to hear how you do it, if you don't mind revealing. I.e. it has to be close enough to a road that you can retrieve it without having to lug the fuel cans long distances, yet remote enough that it won't easily be found (unless you're depending on an off-road vehicle). I guess a big-wheeled folding hand cart could come in handy, if the ground isn't too muddy.

The thing I'd probably want for a 1-person bugout in a NOLA type of evacuation would be a trail bike. It gets 60+ mpg, can zoom around traffic jams on the highway, and can go off road if needed. Seems like about the surest means to get the heck out of Dodge. Or, since I'm near the ocean, maybe a sailboat <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />.

I keep imagining fuel not available at any price, so want maximum mpg (more environmentally responsible anyway) and tank capacity, which points to something like a Honda Insight (70 mpg, 10.6 gal) as my next car, not an SUV. But that means not all that much cargo space and no off-road antics.