I'm glad I just bought a 5 gallon gas container and filled it.  It might come in handy.

I learned that I need to make my 72 hour family emergency kit (family BOB) more accessible and portable.

I learned that I also need to have my rifle and mags ready to go too.

Don't live in a flood zone.

1) Don't live in places vulnerable to bad weather and natural disasters. No hurricane zones, earthquake zones, or anyplace where fires large enough to engulf entire counties occur on a regular basis.

2) Have at least two ways out in an emergency and someplace to go.

3) Stay outside of the big cities.

4) Stockpile food, water, and ammunition.

5) Stockpile more food, more water, and more ammunition.

6) Generator. With plenty of gas.

7) Water filtration and purification equipment, fire starting equipment, and disinfectants are necessary.

8) Communications gear. Cell phone, CB/Ham radio, walkie-talkies, police scanner, satellite tv, whatever. Stay informed.

9) More food, more water, more ammunition.

10) Build to last. Solid foundation on high, solid ground; fire-resistant construction; built to be defensible in an emergency.

Quoted: Don't live in a flood zone.

Wow.........simply stunning ..............some people live to be a Darwin Award nominee though. ( a HANDFUL of people did not have a choice - the rest chose to live there - chose to stay there.)

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: 3. Five or ten gallons of gas wouldn't hurt. At 25 MPG that gives you a range of 250 miles, which would have probably gotten you out of the severe weather region withoug having to worry about gas stations. Had EMS friends in NO Sunday. East bound traffic backed up like hell, northbound was even worse. NO gas for nearly 200 miles, and only then they convinced some lady to sell them gas because they were in marked EMS vehicles. It took them 6 hours over there last week, and 15 hours back. Might be better to prepare for more than that. +1 I also have several empties on standby. Well, five or ten gallons in Jerry cans in addition to what you have in your tank. That should be enough to get you at least 200+ miles. The problem is of courset that gas doesn't store well, and it's a fire hazard to keep a lot of it around. You'd have to rotate through your jerry cans. Exactly what I do. I have a minimum of four that I rotate through.

Don't get attached to anything you can't walk out on in 30 seconds if you see the heat hurricane coming around the corner.

Order a snorkel kit for your Jeep...

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Just think. There are plenty of members of this board who lived in that flood plain, and in other high-risk disaster areas all over the continental US. And we're supposedly the smarter ones. <crouched down in Mid-Ohio, where natural disasters are few and far between, unless you count losses to Michigan> Don't you get tornados? Rarely. I can count on one hand the number of touchdowns in my area in the last 10 years, and none resulted in loss of life. Compared to hurricane alley, I'd say we're relatively bulletproof.

Katrina was the worst storm ever. If a F5 touched down and ran through Iowa City, we would have members here saying how crazy it was to live in the mid west.

If Chicago got the worst snow storm in recorded history with 30 feet of snow over 5 days, we would have members saying don't build near the great lakes.

If we got to worst earthquake in CA and it leveled San Fran, we would have members saying don't live in CA.

Mid Texas gets heat. If they had a summer heat wave of say 130 degree days for six weeks in a row, how many people would die?

The only place you don't have a chance of dieing is 6' under. Because you are already dead.

dont live in a flood zone...
dont live in a known hurricane target area.. on the coast
dont live near the coast BELOW SEALEVEL.. i know.. already covered by number 1

dont live in town (now i break that one. .. but anyway a good idea)
dont drive a vehicle that gets 10 miles to the gallon and has a 15 gallon tank.. heck.. dont drive a vehicle that gets 10 mpg..
dont live near people who depend on the govt for their welfare....

dont live in a flood zone

dont live in a flood zone on the coast where hurricanes are known to hit
dont build your house on the side of a steep hill with soft ground (this mostly for southern  cal folks)
dont build your house over an earthquake fault..
dont live in a high rise on a earthquake fault
dont live in a city on a fault zone..
dont live on the mississip next to a levy..
dont live on the mississip in an area the injuns didnt live in 100 to 200 years ago..
dont camp at the bottom of dry gullly in arizona or mexico during the flash flood season..
dont live down stream in a valley below an old earthen dam
dont buy a house built on a toxic waste dump...
dont buy a house built on an old tire dump..
dont stay in a hotel in the winter that is below a huge avalance prone area..

move along as fast as you can and never take no short-cuts...

So where does that leave available?

Quoted: dont live in a flood zone... dont live in a known hurricane target area.. on the coast dont live near the coast BELOW SEALEVEL.. i know.. already covered by number 1 dont live in town (now i break that one. .. but anyway a good idea) dont drive a vehicle that gets 10 miles to the gallon and has a 15 gallon tank.. heck.. dont drive a vehicle that gets 10 mpg.. dont live near people who depend on the govt for their welfare.... dont live in a flood zone dont live in a flood zone on the coast where hurricanes are known to hit dont build your house on the side of a steep hill with soft ground (this mostly for southern  cal folks) dont build your house over an earthquake fault.. dont live in a high rise on a earthquake fault dont live in a city on a fault zone.. dont live on the mississip next to a levy.. dont live on the mississip in an area the injuns didnt live in 100 to 200 years ago.. dont camp at the bottom of dry gullly in arizona or mexico during the flash flood season.. dont live down stream in a valley below an old earthen dam dont buy a house built on a toxic waste dump... dont buy a house built on an old tire dump.. dont stay in a hotel in the winter that is below a huge avalance prone area.. move along as fast as you can and never take no short-cuts...

Quoted: So where does that leave available? Quoted: dont live in a flood zone... dont live in a known hurricane target area.. on the coast dont live near the coast BELOW SEALEVEL.. i know.. already covered by number 1 dont live in town (now i break that one. .. but anyway a good idea) dont drive a vehicle that gets 10 miles to the gallon and has a 15 gallon tank.. heck.. dont drive a vehicle that gets 10 mpg.. dont live near people who depend on the govt for their welfare.... dont live in a flood zone dont live in a flood zone on the coast where hurricanes are known to hit dont build your house on the side of a steep hill with soft ground (this mostly for southern  cal folks) dont build your house over an earthquake fault.. dont live in a high rise on a earthquake fault dont live in a city on a fault zone.. dont live on the mississip next to a levy.. dont live on the mississip in an area the injuns didnt live in 100 to 200 years ago.. dont camp at the bottom of dry gullly in arizona or mexico during the flash flood season.. dont live down stream in a valley below an old earthen dam dont buy a house built on a toxic waste dump... dont buy a house built on an old tire dump.. dont stay in a hotel in the winter that is below a huge avalance prone area.. move along as fast as you can and never take no short-cuts...

What does that leave available you ask? Just go north of the Mason-Dixon line.......you should be set if you avoid the cities.....

Quoted: So where does that leave available?

I think Q3131A already answered that.

Quoted: Do you have any idea what a one way Greyhound ticket costs.  I'd wager PLENTY of those who "couldn't" leavve are wearing designer footwear, have cellphones, cable tv, etc.

In all fairness, some of them are only now wearing designer footwear, a nice wristwatch or twelve, and can afford much nicer transport than a Greyhound bus...Kind of ironic, isn't it?

Don't get trapped into thinking "it wasn't so bad before, I'll just ride it out again"

On the news the evening before Katrina hit, some people in the French Quarter were saying "These houses have been here over 100 years, so we'll be okay"  Uh, there's a first time for catastrophe anywhere.  Just look at Pompeii.

Clean water is a real luxury when you don't have any.  I hear people are drinking polluted water in NO right now.  I hate to see how many problems that's going to cause in the coming weeks.

Quoted: Lessons to be learned??……… Civilization is a VERY thin veneer upon society……

plus one

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Just think. There are plenty of members of this board who lived in that flood plain, and in other high-risk disaster areas all over the continental US. And we're supposedly the smarter ones. <crouched down in Mid-Ohio, where natural disasters are few and far between, unless you count losses to Michigan> Don't you get tornados? Rarely. I can count on one hand the number of touchdowns in my area in the last 10 years, and none resulted in loss of life. Compared to hurricane alley, I'd say we're relatively bulletproof. Katrina was the worst storm ever. If a F5 touched down and ran through Iowa City, we would have members here saying how crazy it was to live in the mid west.

You are crazy if you live in tornado alley.

If Chicago got the worst snow storm in recorded history with 30 feet of snow over 5 days, we would have members saying don't build near the great lakes.

You should not live in the great lakes region unless you are seriously prepared for snow and ice storms.

If we got to worst earthquake in CA and it leveled San Fran, we would have members saying don't live in CA.

Not all of cali, just not in the areas near major fualt lines, wildfire, or mudslide areas.  There are many parts of cali that have none of those risks.

Well I haven't learned anything....OTOH, my wife has learned I'm not such a tin foil wearing crackpot after all.


Bomber

Quoted: do you know how far you could walk/hitch in 5 days?

About 125 miles.

"That people will do absoutly anything for a potato."  Empire of the Sun.