Jacobus Rex
Member
Well I'm spending my first night at home with electricity since Rita hit. I live to the north of the Beaumont area near the Indian reservation and decided to "bugout" on Thursday before the storm because of the strength of the storm and the fact that it was headed right for me at the time.
Anyway, in the spirit of Preacherman's thread, I'll post 10 lessons learned or already known to me and reinforced:
1. I had stocked up on gas and it was a good thing. There was very little available. I even left a cache at home so that when I returned home, I would have gas. I saw a lot of vehicles that ran out. Extra gas cans are golden but guard and secure them well.
2. The baddest bugout vehicle in the world does no good if it is not reliable. I saw a lot of people that had simple mechanical problems that ground them to a halt. I talked to a woman that left her husband behind at home because of a dead battery in a truck that they were planning on using in their convoy. He turned out OK, the storm missed their area.
3. BEWARE of roadblocks! I evaded a number of roadblocks by the Texas DPS. They don't care about your welfare, safety, or anything else. They only care about orders. I KNOW this because I DIRECTLY asked them at roadblocks in order to test their level of resolve. "I don't care" was the most common response. Alternate nearby dirt roads easily routed me around them. The roadblocks were randomly placed and maintained. I entered and exited my area every day post-storm to check on my home and my relatives that could not leave. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a very pro-LEO person, but the safety of my family, relatives, etc. is a higher priority.)
4. Concealable guns are the order of the day. I took a 1911 and S&W .357 for myself and my wife. There was a lot of chaos going on and a lot of crime; however, you can't run around with long arms even if it is "legal".
5. I was glad to have an extremely detailed low level map book. Avoid the main evacuation routes.
6. I am only on the edge of the where the heavy damage starts. It took until last night for my electricity to come on. In the heavily damaged areas, it will take weeks for power to come back on. Plan on staying away for longer than you might think. I'm using power as a measure because things won't start to normalize until the power comes on.
7. Expect all kinds of dumb maneuvers by drivers and odd situations. I watched the poor people from Beaumont that came up the evacuation route from Beaumont up Hwy 1276 that passes in front of my house. I spent a day traveling up and down the line in a direction contra to the traffic jams and observed the evacuation before I actually bugged out. My location was only 60 miles from Beaumont, yet after only making it that far, two people died within one mile of my home.
8. Expect possible panicked groups of heavy armed individuals. One group passed through my community in a small convoy traveling on the wrong side of the road and firing guns in the air to clear the roadway ahead of them.
9. It doesn't have to be the end of the world for things to get pretty crazy for a few days.
10. It is going to take longer than you thought to bugout even traveling by less traveled roads. Beware that less traveled roads may have been selected and marked as evacuation routes. My little Hwy 1276 here at home is normally sleepy but got selected as a route out of Beaumont.
Anyway, there you go. All is well with me and my relatives. We lost a lot of trees and a barn or two but that isn't much everything considered.
Anyway, in the spirit of Preacherman's thread, I'll post 10 lessons learned or already known to me and reinforced:
1. I had stocked up on gas and it was a good thing. There was very little available. I even left a cache at home so that when I returned home, I would have gas. I saw a lot of vehicles that ran out. Extra gas cans are golden but guard and secure them well.
2. The baddest bugout vehicle in the world does no good if it is not reliable. I saw a lot of people that had simple mechanical problems that ground them to a halt. I talked to a woman that left her husband behind at home because of a dead battery in a truck that they were planning on using in their convoy. He turned out OK, the storm missed their area.
3. BEWARE of roadblocks! I evaded a number of roadblocks by the Texas DPS. They don't care about your welfare, safety, or anything else. They only care about orders. I KNOW this because I DIRECTLY asked them at roadblocks in order to test their level of resolve. "I don't care" was the most common response. Alternate nearby dirt roads easily routed me around them. The roadblocks were randomly placed and maintained. I entered and exited my area every day post-storm to check on my home and my relatives that could not leave. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a very pro-LEO person, but the safety of my family, relatives, etc. is a higher priority.)
4. Concealable guns are the order of the day. I took a 1911 and S&W .357 for myself and my wife. There was a lot of chaos going on and a lot of crime; however, you can't run around with long arms even if it is "legal".
5. I was glad to have an extremely detailed low level map book. Avoid the main evacuation routes.
6. I am only on the edge of the where the heavy damage starts. It took until last night for my electricity to come on. In the heavily damaged areas, it will take weeks for power to come back on. Plan on staying away for longer than you might think. I'm using power as a measure because things won't start to normalize until the power comes on.
7. Expect all kinds of dumb maneuvers by drivers and odd situations. I watched the poor people from Beaumont that came up the evacuation route from Beaumont up Hwy 1276 that passes in front of my house. I spent a day traveling up and down the line in a direction contra to the traffic jams and observed the evacuation before I actually bugged out. My location was only 60 miles from Beaumont, yet after only making it that far, two people died within one mile of my home.
8. Expect possible panicked groups of heavy armed individuals. One group passed through my community in a small convoy traveling on the wrong side of the road and firing guns in the air to clear the roadway ahead of them.
9. It doesn't have to be the end of the world for things to get pretty crazy for a few days.
10. It is going to take longer than you thought to bugout even traveling by less traveled roads. Beware that less traveled roads may have been selected and marked as evacuation routes. My little Hwy 1276 here at home is normally sleepy but got selected as a route out of Beaumont.
Anyway, there you go. All is well with me and my relatives. We lost a lot of trees and a barn or two but that isn't much everything considered.