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Is bugging out a romantic fantasy?
- Thread starter mercop
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2006
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- 6,214
I'd do whatever the gubmint told me to do 
This is a great thread with lots of food for thought.
It ain't easy knowing what the right thing is to do when things go belly-up but the best we can do is prepare ourselves for... whatever.
Which is why I hang out here and pick up whatever knowledge I can. Books are another way to learn.
Anyone here read Aton Edwards' 'Preparedness Now!'? Its a pretty useful read and covers many different scenarios that may occur.
This is a great thread with lots of food for thought.
It ain't easy knowing what the right thing is to do when things go belly-up but the best we can do is prepare ourselves for... whatever.
Which is why I hang out here and pick up whatever knowledge I can. Books are another way to learn.
Anyone here read Aton Edwards' 'Preparedness Now!'? Its a pretty useful read and covers many different scenarios that may occur.
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2003
- Messages
- 1,850
time for a scroller 
some bug out reminiscing ......
When I was a teenager , 18 - 19 , I ended up in a little bush town called Wilcannia , in western NSW , an odd situation , because Im related by blood to two of the three tribes that the town sits on the border of the territories of .
I got a job at the Wilcannia Club Hotel , carting kegs of beer around and general hand duties , I heard a whisper from a few folk and over heard a few conversations , as one does when one is playing at being barman , about ruckus that was going to happen that night
I didnt pay it much attention , went out that evening and shot me some meat for the week , I was poaching so I was late-ish getting home , to find the town lit up with police lights , and a full on running street fight between the cops and the natives ... it was more weird because I didnt comprehend what was actually happeneing , and drove thru the centre of it all , there was one instance when two guys who were beating the snot out of a cop stopped , dragged the cop they were beating off the road , telling each other "Its Big Foot ( a nickname that I cant seem to shake off ) , let him thru " , they even waved as I went past , then continued belting snot out of the cop on the footpath ...
when I got home , I quartered the carcass in the back of the ute and shoved it in the freezer then sat up all night with both guns ready , two pig dogs in the house with me for "company" in case of company , the doors locked , lights off , me scared silly by what Id seen , around 3 am , more cops arrived from Bourke , Broken Hill , Menindee and even Ivanhoe IIRC , it spread the fighting from the main street thru the whole of town , it was just nuts .. by 5 am , all was quiet tho and the clean up was allready begining
a couple weeks later , people I didnt know were rolling into town in big numbers , payback had been decreed , and it was gunna happen .... I saw the build up of people here for the fun and heard the rumours , because of the tribal nature of this round tho , it was serious business , I told the boss I was taking the day off from right now and Id maybe see him in a couple days time , he didnt like it and sacked me on the spot , cussed me out and I left , put my swag and rifle in the ute , filled up with fuel and a drum of drinking water and went out to the ten mile dam for the night , ready to stay a week or more if needs be .
couple days later I went back for a look , 1/2 the town population was in jail as well as a lot of the crew who came for the fun , the shops had all taken a bruising , I went in the pub to see how it had fared , the boss swore at me , gave my job back and life carried on as normal ...
my first ever solo bug out
since then I have left town or broken camp to move on because of worries about bushfire , flood or riot , sometime it was a good call and it saved us trouble , like when we got out of QLD barely 12 hours before they was flooded over christmas .. we cut our holiday short a week to do it but we also missed out on being stuck up there too
sometimes its not so good a call like when I had us all ready to bolt for fear of bushfires a couple year ago , the closest they got to us was 40 km away ...
I was nervy tho because of the road closures due to the fire ... I do not like being cut off .
some bug out reminiscing ......When I was a teenager , 18 - 19 , I ended up in a little bush town called Wilcannia , in western NSW , an odd situation , because Im related by blood to two of the three tribes that the town sits on the border of the territories of .
I got a job at the Wilcannia Club Hotel , carting kegs of beer around and general hand duties , I heard a whisper from a few folk and over heard a few conversations , as one does when one is playing at being barman , about ruckus that was going to happen that night
I didnt pay it much attention , went out that evening and shot me some meat for the week , I was poaching so I was late-ish getting home , to find the town lit up with police lights , and a full on running street fight between the cops and the natives ... it was more weird because I didnt comprehend what was actually happeneing , and drove thru the centre of it all , there was one instance when two guys who were beating the snot out of a cop stopped , dragged the cop they were beating off the road , telling each other "Its Big Foot ( a nickname that I cant seem to shake off ) , let him thru " , they even waved as I went past , then continued belting snot out of the cop on the footpath ...
when I got home , I quartered the carcass in the back of the ute and shoved it in the freezer then sat up all night with both guns ready , two pig dogs in the house with me for "company" in case of company , the doors locked , lights off , me scared silly by what Id seen , around 3 am , more cops arrived from Bourke , Broken Hill , Menindee and even Ivanhoe IIRC , it spread the fighting from the main street thru the whole of town , it was just nuts .. by 5 am , all was quiet tho and the clean up was allready begining
a couple weeks later , people I didnt know were rolling into town in big numbers , payback had been decreed , and it was gunna happen .... I saw the build up of people here for the fun and heard the rumours , because of the tribal nature of this round tho , it was serious business , I told the boss I was taking the day off from right now and Id maybe see him in a couple days time , he didnt like it and sacked me on the spot , cussed me out and I left , put my swag and rifle in the ute , filled up with fuel and a drum of drinking water and went out to the ten mile dam for the night , ready to stay a week or more if needs be .
couple days later I went back for a look , 1/2 the town population was in jail as well as a lot of the crew who came for the fun , the shops had all taken a bruising , I went in the pub to see how it had fared , the boss swore at me , gave my job back and life carried on as normal ...
my first ever solo bug out
since then I have left town or broken camp to move on because of worries about bushfire , flood or riot , sometime it was a good call and it saved us trouble , like when we got out of QLD barely 12 hours before they was flooded over christmas .. we cut our holiday short a week to do it but we also missed out on being stuck up there too
sometimes its not so good a call like when I had us all ready to bolt for fear of bushfires a couple year ago , the closest they got to us was 40 km away ...
I was nervy tho because of the road closures due to the fire ... I do not like being cut off .
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- 887
Thanks for the bugout reminiscing, Myal.
That reminds me. 10 years ago this afternoon, at about 3:31 p.m., two tornadoes (Fujita F2, so not big ones) tore through downtown Nashville, TN. I remember the "3:31" because I got to look at stopped clocks for a few days afterwards. I'd been finishing up my law school studies earlier that afternoon, and had weighed whether to park my car at the law school and hit the books in the library, or drive home to my off-campus apartment. I opted for the latter.
That morning, some thunderstorms had tripped the ground fault circuit interrupters in our house, and the radio carried news that tornadoes had killed some people in the pre-dawn darkness many miles to the west of us (= to windward) in Arkansas. It was a hot spring day. When I got back to the apartment, my roommate and I turned on the TV for news. A storm front was headed our way, with tornado-generating potential.
Over the next couple of hours, we watched as the TV news tracked some ominous storm cells our way. My roommate confidently assured me--repeatedly--that tornadoes never hit big cities, because big cities are located in river valleys (as is Nashville, kind of, on the Cumberland River in central Tennessee), and thus they tend to jump right over them. (Like, right. I believe I can state with confidence that he has never said this again since that day. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)
The "tornado watch" news replaced other coverage, and soon the weather-radar screens began showing smaller and smaller areas, narrowing from a several-counties-wide view to just the Nashville area. An angry-looking cell getting the most attention. This was depicted with a red-colored wedge on the screen, showing the most-likely areas that the cell would pass over in the next few minutes. I noticed that the newscasters transitioned from saying that there was a tornado "watch" (indicating that a tornado might develop) to saying that "it" was headed in so-and-so direction--with "it" obviously referring to a now-existing tornado. We saw that the lower end of the wedge on the TV screen pointing at our neighborhood--by now the radar image screen was narrowed enough to show actual major streets in Nashville.
I went outside and looked at the sky. The clouds to the north and west were moving with eerie speed--almost like the fast-action footage of clouds you see in the movies sometimes. The clouds were incredibly dark. I became aware--over how long a period I don't know--that the thunder I was hearing had become continuous, instead of being a series of closely-spaced thunderclaps. It had turned, without my quite noticing when, into a freight-train-like sustained roar. I also became aware that, while some of the clouds were moving left to right, others were moving right to left. It took my brain a few seconds to connect these motions and register that I was seeing a circular, funnel-shaped wind pattern moving through the neighborhood.
I shouted to my roommate to take cover. There was sort of a flash of light as a sharp gust of wind turned over the leaves of all the trees in the neighborhood simultaneously, showing their lighter undersides. I heard a mighty "CRACK" as a large forked tree near our apartment was split down the middle. I'd scouted out as the best available shelter a space underneath our one-story apartment--it was built on a bit of a rise, so that, with the floor level, there was a wedge-shaped space under the building. I pulled out, with two fingers, the nail that held shut the plywood door, went inside, and held the door shut.
The roaring wind outside alternately pulled on the door--and it would open slightly, and I could see leaves and grass fly by, brightly lit by the afternoon sun, but at a speed that made them into linear blurs across my field of vision--and then pushed it back closed, compressing my fingers between the plywood and the brick wall. I noticed some neighbors from a nearby building (that did not have an air-space underneath it) standing fearfully, wondering where to go. I impatiently gestured for them to come and join me. They did--and were soon joined by a couple of cousins, whose excited account of their having seen a tornado funnel touch down drowned out the news we were listening to on the neighbor's portable mini-TV/radio.
Afterwards, power lines were down around the city; trees were down across roads. I ran after a school bus, shouting warnings, and got the bus driver to stop a handful of yards before he would have run into a downed electrical line. I saw street signs twisted and snapped like celery stalks. Lines of cars moved slowly down a nearby street, with drivers relaying what little news we (temporarily without access to news, because our radios were mostly powered by the now-out city electrical grid) could get. I heard snatches of conversation about buildings destroyed. The tires on my car were, for some reason, flat.
After getting the car functional and removing some downed tree-branches from the driveway, I went out to the store--batteries and candles were all gone from the shelves. Not having thought that a chainsaw or axe would be of much use in law school, I didn't have either, and now wished I did. Hundreds-of-years-old trees were snapped like wooden arrows, or pushed flat, with their huge root-balls pulled out of the ground, leaving great craters in the earth. I saw a couple of cinder-block walls blown down, and several trees down across buildings and cars. The law school parking lot had several cars that had been crushed by two-foot-diameter falling trees. I was glad I hadn't parked there to study.
I learned a lot about disaster preparedness that day--the usefulness of a radio, of an emergency bugout/bug-in bag (can be the same thing); what happens to a city when trees fall across the roads and power lines; the difficulty of controlling groups of agitated, excited people in an emergency, and, above all, the importance of being prepared.
That reminds me. 10 years ago this afternoon, at about 3:31 p.m., two tornadoes (Fujita F2, so not big ones) tore through downtown Nashville, TN. I remember the "3:31" because I got to look at stopped clocks for a few days afterwards. I'd been finishing up my law school studies earlier that afternoon, and had weighed whether to park my car at the law school and hit the books in the library, or drive home to my off-campus apartment. I opted for the latter.
That morning, some thunderstorms had tripped the ground fault circuit interrupters in our house, and the radio carried news that tornadoes had killed some people in the pre-dawn darkness many miles to the west of us (= to windward) in Arkansas. It was a hot spring day. When I got back to the apartment, my roommate and I turned on the TV for news. A storm front was headed our way, with tornado-generating potential.
Over the next couple of hours, we watched as the TV news tracked some ominous storm cells our way. My roommate confidently assured me--repeatedly--that tornadoes never hit big cities, because big cities are located in river valleys (as is Nashville, kind of, on the Cumberland River in central Tennessee), and thus they tend to jump right over them. (Like, right. I believe I can state with confidence that he has never said this again since that day. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)
The "tornado watch" news replaced other coverage, and soon the weather-radar screens began showing smaller and smaller areas, narrowing from a several-counties-wide view to just the Nashville area. An angry-looking cell getting the most attention. This was depicted with a red-colored wedge on the screen, showing the most-likely areas that the cell would pass over in the next few minutes. I noticed that the newscasters transitioned from saying that there was a tornado "watch" (indicating that a tornado might develop) to saying that "it" was headed in so-and-so direction--with "it" obviously referring to a now-existing tornado. We saw that the lower end of the wedge on the TV screen pointing at our neighborhood--by now the radar image screen was narrowed enough to show actual major streets in Nashville.
I went outside and looked at the sky. The clouds to the north and west were moving with eerie speed--almost like the fast-action footage of clouds you see in the movies sometimes. The clouds were incredibly dark. I became aware--over how long a period I don't know--that the thunder I was hearing had become continuous, instead of being a series of closely-spaced thunderclaps. It had turned, without my quite noticing when, into a freight-train-like sustained roar. I also became aware that, while some of the clouds were moving left to right, others were moving right to left. It took my brain a few seconds to connect these motions and register that I was seeing a circular, funnel-shaped wind pattern moving through the neighborhood.
I shouted to my roommate to take cover. There was sort of a flash of light as a sharp gust of wind turned over the leaves of all the trees in the neighborhood simultaneously, showing their lighter undersides. I heard a mighty "CRACK" as a large forked tree near our apartment was split down the middle. I'd scouted out as the best available shelter a space underneath our one-story apartment--it was built on a bit of a rise, so that, with the floor level, there was a wedge-shaped space under the building. I pulled out, with two fingers, the nail that held shut the plywood door, went inside, and held the door shut.
The roaring wind outside alternately pulled on the door--and it would open slightly, and I could see leaves and grass fly by, brightly lit by the afternoon sun, but at a speed that made them into linear blurs across my field of vision--and then pushed it back closed, compressing my fingers between the plywood and the brick wall. I noticed some neighbors from a nearby building (that did not have an air-space underneath it) standing fearfully, wondering where to go. I impatiently gestured for them to come and join me. They did--and were soon joined by a couple of cousins, whose excited account of their having seen a tornado funnel touch down drowned out the news we were listening to on the neighbor's portable mini-TV/radio.
Afterwards, power lines were down around the city; trees were down across roads. I ran after a school bus, shouting warnings, and got the bus driver to stop a handful of yards before he would have run into a downed electrical line. I saw street signs twisted and snapped like celery stalks. Lines of cars moved slowly down a nearby street, with drivers relaying what little news we (temporarily without access to news, because our radios were mostly powered by the now-out city electrical grid) could get. I heard snatches of conversation about buildings destroyed. The tires on my car were, for some reason, flat.
After getting the car functional and removing some downed tree-branches from the driveway, I went out to the store--batteries and candles were all gone from the shelves. Not having thought that a chainsaw or axe would be of much use in law school, I didn't have either, and now wished I did. Hundreds-of-years-old trees were snapped like wooden arrows, or pushed flat, with their huge root-balls pulled out of the ground, leaving great craters in the earth. I saw a couple of cinder-block walls blown down, and several trees down across buildings and cars. The law school parking lot had several cars that had been crushed by two-foot-diameter falling trees. I was glad I hadn't parked there to study.
I learned a lot about disaster preparedness that day--the usefulness of a radio, of an emergency bugout/bug-in bag (can be the same thing); what happens to a city when trees fall across the roads and power lines; the difficulty of controlling groups of agitated, excited people in an emergency, and, above all, the importance of being prepared.
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Likewise--thanks, Myal!
I dont think its a fantasy at all. There many reasons why you may have to leave you home and/or city.
A few years ago my family and I had to leave because of no power, heat or water due to a ice storm that shut down half of the city I lived in. Its hard to keep the wife and kids happy when it 20-30 in the house and no electric or water. Note: I later made preps to keep from this happing again.
I have had relatives that had to bug out several times due to flash floods.
I have lived near a area where most of a subdivision was leveled due to tornadoes.
Dont forget having to bug out if your house catches fire in the middle of the night.
And I cant leave out living not to far from a area that has a Gov Facility that stores stock piles of aging nerve gas rockets. just about every house in a two county are has alert radios or sirens
A few years ago my family and I had to leave because of no power, heat or water due to a ice storm that shut down half of the city I lived in. Its hard to keep the wife and kids happy when it 20-30 in the house and no electric or water. Note: I later made preps to keep from this happing again.
I have had relatives that had to bug out several times due to flash floods.
I have lived near a area where most of a subdivision was leveled due to tornadoes.
Dont forget having to bug out if your house catches fire in the middle of the night.
And I cant leave out living not to far from a area that has a Gov Facility that stores stock piles of aging nerve gas rockets. just about every house in a two county are has alert radios or sirens
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I don't think that "bugging out" in some circumstances is "fantasy" per se. However, I think that many people's plans to walk out or ride out in a regular vehicle, car or SUV, packing exposed long guns is a 100% engagement with The National Guard. I don't agree that the response from The Guard should be to kill Americans who are obviously armed and FLEEING the carnage but I would bet a month's pay that's what is going to happen should such a scenario unfold.
If you are in a regular car or SUV, you're not going to get out, period. The streets are either going to be jammed with vehicles that have people in them or have been abandoned or The Guard is going to clear the streets of those vehicles and you are back to Scenario Number One in the paragraph above.
If you confront the wrong Guard Unit that has been to Iraq and has already shot people trying to run a roadblock, have fun!
You can paint yourself into a corner that you cannot escape from. If you live in a city, you need to retire to the country if this is a pressing issue in your plans because the city, any major city, is going to be very hard to escape except on foot or bicycle or perhaps dirt bike or similar vehicle, etc. And then you are going to have to actively shoot people in order to keep the vehicle you have.
What do we have to go on? Hurricane Rita. If something happens on that scale in a major city and it involves terrorism or civil unrest, you best believe that it is going to be much, much worse.
If you live in a city, in my opinion, you have two basic choices:
1. Prepare to Shelter In Place for a few weeks and have food you don't have to cook.
2. Get out now if you think it is coming.
If you are in a regular car or SUV, you're not going to get out, period. The streets are either going to be jammed with vehicles that have people in them or have been abandoned or The Guard is going to clear the streets of those vehicles and you are back to Scenario Number One in the paragraph above.
If you confront the wrong Guard Unit that has been to Iraq and has already shot people trying to run a roadblock, have fun!
You can paint yourself into a corner that you cannot escape from. If you live in a city, you need to retire to the country if this is a pressing issue in your plans because the city, any major city, is going to be very hard to escape except on foot or bicycle or perhaps dirt bike or similar vehicle, etc. And then you are going to have to actively shoot people in order to keep the vehicle you have.
What do we have to go on? Hurricane Rita. If something happens on that scale in a major city and it involves terrorism or civil unrest, you best believe that it is going to be much, much worse.
If you live in a city, in my opinion, you have two basic choices:
1. Prepare to Shelter In Place for a few weeks and have food you don't have to cook.
2. Get out now if you think it is coming.
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- 887
Don has some good points. Personally, I think an epidemic is the likeliest civilization-scale disaster with which we're threatened. I've got kids, and I get re-reminded about 3 times a year just how impossible it is to get them to keep their fingers out of their mouths, keep them from wiping their snot on their sleeves (or my shirt), etc.
One thing this has led me to face is the fact that, if there's a serious epidemic, it's going to go through schools like wildfire. The families that don't lose lives in that situation may well be those who have thought through this scenario thoroughly enough to see it coming at the first sign (and not the third or fourth sign, when the public officials officially recognize the problem and the threat and tell you to keep your kids home). Part of this will also entail having prepared enough that one is willing to face the reality and really see it for what it is.
I think one's level of preparedness may have an impact on the ability to assess the situation objectively. If you are really and truly set up to close the doors for two weeks and live off of what you have in the house, it's going to be a whole lot easier to decide that this is the time to do it (when that time comes) than if you only have 2 days' supplies. If you're underprepared, you'll be excessively tempted to believe that the situation can't really be that bad, really.
I think it's worth thinking through things like what to do in the "gray area" times--the times when the hurricane is forming and vaguely headed your way but before the authorities are going door to door and ordering you to evacuate. The time when there are 20 reported cases of something that looks a little like SARS in New York City, but it hasn't reached your town yet. The time when--let's say you're a pre-WWII Jewish German and the authorities are spouting all kinds of sinister propaganda and beginning to make life tough for you, but they haven't yet started rounding you up and herding you into gas chambers. What will you do then? There is GREAT VALUE in figuring out which way the wind is blowing BEFORE the great bulk of people figure it out--and being prepared to make a reasonable response during the gray time.
One example: think about means of keeping your job, and keeping from getting into trouble with the truancy authorities, during times when the first danger signs are there, but the full impact of the disaster hasn't made it into the newspaper headlines. Think through telecommuting. Persuade your boss that it's a good idea in times of trouble. Think through homeschooling--and have an idea where to get a basic curriculum for your kids (before the shelves are all emptied of it), in case you decide that it'd be good for them to take an epidemic-forced two-month vacation from their classroom full of sniffling fellow-tykes.
The following is a thought-provoking read, along these lines:
http://www.birdflumanual.com/resour...a's Economic Collapse in 2001 10Dec2006-1.pdf
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I know, I have a walking petri dish here as well.
As to your other points, if Dr.Gary C. Ridenour is correct, The Spanish Flu of 1918 - The Disease that made Germany sue for peace in World War One, is the same one that will come around as it is functionally the same as the lethal one we are "waiting for" if not the one.
They exhumed some Inuits a few years ago and they still had live virus in their lung tissue.
If you get it, you will be dead in eight hours or so. The healthiest, believe it or not, will go first. They have better immune systems and it is your immune system's overreaction to this flu virus that floods your lungs and dissolves the tissue. You start coughing up virus, blood and lung tissue and the only thing left for you is morphine and The End.
People with totally compromised immune systems will also go from secondary infections.
Those in the middle will survive.
You won't have to worry about your Boss or the Truant Officer, it's quite likely they will be dead, hiding, taking care of their own or have other, more pressing matters at hand in any case. In other words, when this stuff hits an area, it's going to take about eight hours after serious symptoms occur and you're going to be seeing a whole lot of dead people in clusters.
Dylan you might be better off with just a 'joe shmoe' looking front wheel drive mini van. Reasons, no one will think you know what you know, no one think you are loaded with anything but kids inside the heavily tinted windows, front wheel drive will do a decent fire road all day long (i've driven plenty with a fully (over) loaded mini van and never got stuck, you can easily vent the van from inside temps with the rear windows cracked and no one can see inside if you are not around, going to get the same or better mpg than a 4x, lower profile in town, cheaper to repair, plentiful parts.
Had the Ascot 500 myself, and a few others in my past. Did'nt the older T's have the carb and a half setups? A fellow dualsporter
I'm with Dylan on this:thumbup: After all the BS I've put up with in this life so far you better REALLY be Bringing It my way to out live me! Dylan, set up a side business building up bikes or design a kit for self install and sell that. You have plenty of customers to start with right here!
Forget kydex, go dual sporter kit $$$$
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+1 on the stealth bug out vehicle ...
for the reason only that if it looks a serious offroader , and times are seriously bad , your vehicle and all it contains cane asily enough be confiscated by cops military militia etc ...legally or not
better to have a plain jane looking vehicle that can go places
I have a boring old toyota corona that has some offroad tyres on back , light truck tyres on front to keep the profiles the same , it doesnt look much , but it goes places that suprise me
the biggest issue that street cars have with dirt tracks and offroading is lack of grip , good rubber will fix that problem
common sense plays a huge part in what you try to do with it , but you get a whole heap more
for the reason only that if it looks a serious offroader , and times are seriously bad , your vehicle and all it contains cane asily enough be confiscated by cops military militia etc ...legally or not
better to have a plain jane looking vehicle that can go places
I have a boring old toyota corona that has some offroad tyres on back , light truck tyres on front to keep the profiles the same , it doesnt look much , but it goes places that suprise me
the biggest issue that street cars have with dirt tracks and offroading is lack of grip , good rubber will fix that problem
common sense plays a huge part in what you try to do with it , but you get a whole heap more
Actually it's not; I watch the birds at my birdfeederout of my office window from time to time. I notice that when all the other birds start to make their way to the woods, in pairs,or small flocks, the only birds left are the mourning doves
They hunker down and remain dead still, even as a farm cat stalks up on them
then bolt at the last minute. a few don't make it the necessary 4 ft off the ground and end up in the leaping cat's claws and end up as dinner
What you do depends on where you live and what the situation is. I moved here in July of 1995.
Idyllic site, yes? Hurricane Erin reintensified to a hurricane and continued strengthening until its final landfall occurred near Pensacola, Florida during the late morning of August the 3rd. An eye had redeveloped while crossing the Gulf of Mexico, as well. Erin had maximum sustained winds around 100 mph (160 km/h) in a small area of its northeastern eyewall when that portion of the hurricane came ashore near Fort Walton Beach, making it a Category 2 hurricane at landfall. The most significant damage from the second landfall in Florida was near Pensacola, where Erin made landfall, and Navarre Beach, where almost one-third of buildings suffered major damage.[17] A maximum wind of 101 mph was reported at Pensacola Naval Air Station. The tower of Pensacola Airport was evacuated, due to high winds, and the data is therefore unavailable. More than 2,000 homes were reported damaged from Erin. Some beach erosion was also reported west of Navarre Beach. A dead center hit on us. As the hurricane zig-zagged, we followed it's course. By the time we realized we were wearing a big red bullseye, it was too late to evacuate down the penninsula or across the three mile long Pensacola Bay bridge. We rode it out at home. Many were caught on the highways trying to flee.
On October 4, a 115-mph (185-km/h) hurricane, Opal hit us dead center with a 15-ft (5-m) storm surge. Rainfalls in Florida peaked at 15.45 inches (392 mm) in Ellyson, 7.27 inches (185 mm) at Pensacola, 6.64 inches (169 mm) at Hurlburt Field. The highest gust recorded was a 145 mph (233 km/h) gust at Hurlburt Field. Nearly a mile of U. S. Highway 98 near Eglin Air Force Base was completely destroyed. The pavement was nearly replaced by mounds of sand left behind after storm surge.[10] Opal also spawned an F2 tornado that killed a young woman in Florida. None died as a direct result of storm surge. This is quite unusual, considering the strength and landfall location of Opal. Okaloosa Island, Fort Walton Beach, was overwhelmed by storm surge. Numerous homes were under 3 feet (0.91 m) to 10 feet (3.0 m) of water. Residents were not allowed to return to the island until the homes could be secured from looters. My house was at elevation of 16 feet. New to the area and hurricanes, my family and I rode out the storm at home. We had adequate supplies of food and fresh water, security from looters and a few battery powered conveniences besides camp stoves and lanterns. Power was restored a week later.
I finally evacuated. I moved six hundred miles North where we have tornados, but not hurricanes. I am still prepared to "bug in" here in my rural home in Southwest Tennessee.
Codger
You and my Brother both OC. My Brother's house was off 98 in FW and he lost it all. Lucky for him, he and his wife, were both stationed at Hurlburtt Field at the time USAF. I recognized your aerial photo having been to Navarre Beach during Katrina...I blew through the toll booth at the causeway and had to back up to an attendant hanging out of the booth
showed my creds and floored it againI dont really call this bugging out but in a sense it was. When Katrina came, it caught us by surprise. I was not prepared. My wife ended up having to stay at the Hospital were she works due to patients and not being able to drive home because of bad roads. My daughters and me were stuck in our house with no electicity and not enough food to last really over a few days and it was right in the middle of the summer with the Mississippi sun beaming down on my house. I live in the middle of a feild with no trees. It was horrible. Luckly my dad had a generator that didnt work so we fixed it the best we could and used it at his house across the road. Alot of people stayed there and we all gatherd our food and drinks and rationed them out every day. The generator run on butane so we hooked it straight to his 250 gal. tank. Its amazing what you can do if you have to. To cool off during the day, my daughters and me would get in our swimming pool and honestly im glad i had that. It was so dam hot. We made it for a week and a half with out power or water. We used a small stream for water and put stuff in it to keep things like milk cold. It was tuff. I was amazed how fast the stores and gas went out of stock. It only took a couple of days and we was on our own. I admitt I was soft. So now im prepared, i have my own generator and i keep plenty of gas for a week just in case. I have a bunch of MREs on stock. Enough for about 4 days with a 4 family. I also have enough ammunition for hunting if needed. I have learned the hard way how fast the world can go to crap if disaster strikes. Now I think im better prepared than I was before.