Your travel may be a lot less safe than usual. Read my article about ' Lessons learned from Hurrican

The idle musings hotel casino las vegas nv of a former military man, former computer hotel casino las vegas nv geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed!
A number of so-called 'survivalists' brag about their 'bug-out' locations - essentially a second home, stocked and equipped to permit them and their selected relatives, friends and companions to survive hotel casino las vegas nv anything from a severe weather event to the end of the world as we know it. For most of us, this is nothing but a pipe-dream hotel casino las vegas nv - completely unrealistic . If you're one of the very few people with sufficient financial reserves to afford such a retreat, plus the health, strength and mindset to make the most of it, and the human and other resources necessary to make it work for a year or more, good luck to you . . . but only a tiny minority of the population (certainly less than 5%, probably less than 3%) has all those resources.
1. You have to be in a position to drop everything and go when the time comes. For most of us, this isn't a realistic possibility. For example, if you have a job, your employer is likely to take a very dim view of your calling in one morning and telling him "Society's about to collapse, and I'm heading for my bunker. Have a nice day!" If society does, indeed, collapse, hotel casino las vegas nv I suppose you won't have to worry about his reaction . . . but if society doesn't collapse (at least, not immediately), your chances of getting your job back are, shall we say, less than optimal. That goes double for getting another job in the present economic climate, particularly given the reference your former place of work will provide to other prospective hotel casino las vegas nv employers! Apart from your job, there are your kids and their schooling; your present home and its rent or mortgage payments; your commitments to other family members and friends; and so on. Just think of all that's involved in cutting these ties at a moment's notice and disappearing in the direction of your secret hide-out. Think it'll be easy? Yeah. Right .
If there's any sort of warning hotel casino las vegas nv of impending doom, a lot of people besides yourself will also be trying to 'get out of Dodge'. That means clogged, jammed roads, incredibly slow movement (perhaps measured in yards per hour, rather than miles), a much higher fuel consumption than your vehicle(s) normally achieve, and gas stations running dry under the unprecedented hotel casino las vegas nv demand. Do you have enough fuel already stored (and stored safely ) at home to fill your tank(s), and take enough reserves with you to ensure you can get to your destination, assuming at least double (if not three to four times) normal fuel consumption? If you don't, you're likely to be S.O.L. when the proverbial brown substance hits the rotary air impeller.
Officialdom might seek to control or limit movement in a crisis situation. That major highway you planned to take to your hideout? It might be designated as a mass evacuation route, including contraflow lane reversal to allow for greater traffic flow in the 'approved' direction (which may be the opposite direction to what you need). It might be overrun with traffic diverted hotel casino las vegas nv from other, now-closed routes. For that matter, if it runs through an urban area, rioting mobs might shut it down even more effectively than official action. I'd hate to have to take I-90 through downtown Chicago, or the maze of Interstate highways hotel casino las vegas nv through and around New York City or Atlanta or Los Angeles, during a major social disturbance or unrest. Talk about an urban free-fire zone !
Your travel may be a lot less safe than usual. Read my article about ' Lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 '. A lot of people found themselves approached (sometimes very aggressively) by others during evacuation, asking for - even demanding hotel casino las vegas nv - fuel, food, money or other assistance. There were attempts at theft, assault, etc. In a widespread emergency, it's very likely you'll encounter something similar. You'll need to provide security hotel casino las vegas nv for your party while traveling, hotel casino las vegas nv and have someone to keep watch while others are sleeping in a rest area or while your car's parked at a truck stop. If you're on your own, or in a very small party, this will be difficult - perhaps impossible.
You may find your journey interrupted hotel casino las vegas nv by local officials. In an extended emergency, it won't surprise me to see towns trying to save themselves from being overrun by refugees, on the (very reasonable) hotel casino las vegas nv grounds that they have little enough in the way of resources for their own residents. Edicts from federal or state government agencies may not cut much ice with local officials who know they'll be the ones actually hotel casino las vegas nv confronting the problem. They might just raise a sardonic finger to those official edicts, and divert traffic hotel casino las vegas nv away from their towns. If you happen to need to go through their town to join another road, or get to your destination, or even just to use a bathroom . . . T.S.
Local communities may decide to commandeer any and all supplies they may need to survive the emergency. This will likely be from local stores, gas stations, etc. where you might have intended to resupply yourself; and historically, hotel casino las vegas nv it's sometimes included confiscation from travelers of fuel, food, firearms and ammunition, etc. (Transients don't vote in local elections, so their needs are less important, in local officials' eyes, than those of their constituents.) If officials don't do that, local residents may decide to do so on their own initiative. That's illegal and/or unconstitutional, you say? You're right, of course . . . but in an emergency, few in authority are likely to care about that. They'll be too busy coping with everything else that's going on. If you try to insist on your 'rights', you may end up getting arrested hotel casino las vegas nv (or worse) for your trouble. ' Might makes right ', as the old saying goes; or, to put it another way, you'll be ' farting against thunder hotel casino las vegas nv '. Look at what New Orleans did to firearm owners during Hurricane Katrina . Think something similar won't happen again, in other places, despite laws to the contrary? I guarantee you, it will .
3. If your bug-out location isn't sufficiently remote, it can be reached by others besides yourself. Think about it. If you can drive 400 miles to reach your 'safe haven', your neighbors can do the same - as well as other, less desirable travel companions. You can bet that a whole lot of unprepared people will be heading for safety. They'll expect FEMA or other government hotel casino las vegas nv agencies to help them when they get there. hotel casino las vegas nv If that help isn't forthcoming hotel casino las vegas nv (and perhaps even if it is), they'll have no scruples about taking whatever they need (or want) from others. Again, read my article about ' Lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 '. It happened then. It can happen to you, too.
You may assume that you can defend your bug-out location against hotel casino las vegas nv thieves and marauding looters. Have you had any military training in such things? If so, you'll be aware of the importance of having a ' fire team ' (or multiple hotel casino las vegas nv fire teams) sufficient to cover all access routes, reinforce each other as and when necessary, and have a sufficiently large reserve hotel casino las vegas nv of personnel hotel casino las vegas nv to rotate guard duty among them. I figure that the average house, needing to have its perimeter guarded against intruders and a sufficiently well-armed and -trained force available to drive them off if necessary, will need at least ten to twelve people to adequately protect it. Depending on terrain and environment, your home might need twice as many people to guard it. Do you have that many trained people available (trained hotel casino las vegas nv not just to do the job, but to work together as a team in doing so)? Are they sufficiently well armed and equipped? Do they have enough ammunition? Not many of us can answer "Yes" to all those questions. We can work together with our neighbors at home to make up for individual deficiencies; but on the road or in a bug-out location, we may not have such neighbors available.
Quite apart from robbery attempts during or after an emergency, what about securing your supplies before hotel casino las vegas nv an emergency? It's unlikely you'll have someone living 24/7/365 at your bug-out location (if you do, that's great, but it's also unusual). Locals are likely to be aware that you're keeping a lot of supplies there - it's amazing how much small-town and rural people know about the doings of their neighbors. In an emergency, you might arrive safely, only to find that all the supplies hotel casino las vegas nv you'd so carefully laid in have been appropriated by 'borrowing neighbors' who got there before hotel casino las vegas nv you did. This has been a frequent occurrence in other parts of the world, one I've encountered personally on more than one occasion. It can lead to conflict between the aggrieved owner(s) of the goods and the locals who've taken them - after all, in a survival situation, no-one's going to be willing to give up essential supplies. Since the locals are likely to band together for mutual support, you, the outsider, might find yourself holding the short end of the stick.
This may even extend to the outright 'annexation' of your bug-out location. What are you going to do if you arrive there, only to find another family or families already in residence, and refusing to move out? What if they're more numerous and/or better armed than you are? What if local law enforcement refuses to take action, referring you instead to the civil courts to obtain an injunction against the trespassers? Even assuming the courts are still functioning, such an injunction can take weeks or months to obtain, let alone enforce - and meanwhile you'll be S.O.L. (For that matter, local law enforcement may commandeer your buildings and supplies 'for the duration of the emergency'. It happened after Katrina. You probably don't live in your bug-out location year-round, so you're lower on their priority list than their families, friends a