Preparing for evacuation to a public shelter

Nanb - September 7, 2021

I realize this is not what most folks here, including myself prepare for. But recent massive flooding in my area has me wondering- if I could not shelter in place, AND my vehicle was flooded (many people in my town lost their cars)or roads were closed, and I ended up in some sort of community shelter, what would I wish I had packed? Across the board from hygiene, to privacy and comfort but also personal security and preventing theft, etc? 

28  

Good morning Nanb,

Your question is pertinent to a prepper.  Although many of us seek to shelter in place, an evac to a public shelter must be considered.

I used to run part of a public emergency shelter and participated in statewide exercises and planning sessions. The new Virginia guidelines inherently admit the political subdivisions like counties and small cities cannot comply with CDC overall guidance and rent motels and dorms for evacuees.  The $$$ are not present nor the needed motels and dorms.

My strongest recommendation is to carry as much of your stuff – hygiene, extra socks, comfort stuff, on your person.  I used cargo vests and loadbearing suspenders with large, quality lightweight (most not MILSPEC) pouches.

Have a few packs of eg good quality “wash and dry” type of disposable cloths.  Mine are brand in red envelope.  The new Virginia hurricane evacuation guide says when in shelter … typically it is a school building … to max out hygiene like CDC recommends … eg much hand washing, etc. At school rest rooms, there are only so many sinks. I would not enter one of these places under most conditions. They will be crowded.

You can guess those who write and approve publication of emergency pamphlets for the public are products of the sheltered suburbs.

If you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask here at TP.com.

Just don’t ask me about well funded (with much Fed $$$) uninterrupted power supply (“UPS”) for critical emergency shelters (There are some for USN families). Not supposed to go public with some info. I can say I carry a lightweight tarp to sleep outdoors of school building. I rest during daytime and am up all night.  If shelter has a co-located animal shelter, during day’s 2 naps, will sleep at the dog section. This area is cleaner than main public emergency shelter section.  It is quieter.  It is cleaner. The registerants appreciate the responders and responder receives affection, thank yous in dog talk, good breath, ……

 

[comment deleted]

 

Sarah, my reading of events in assorted US hurricane scenarios suggests very strongly NO EAR PLUGs if you are a single person in a shelter. OK if you have someone on watch I guess, but not a good idea if you are alone.

 

A a member of the gender that is routinely told that we can’t exercise with music because we’ll be raped and murdered, I’ve had a lot of practice assessing a circumstance and determining whether it requires my full hearing or not. Having ear plugs in my BOB allows me to decide whether or not it is safe to use them. If you don’t have them, you have no choice.

 

It’s good that you are prepared with those items and have the choice to use them or not. And even better to have the experience and practice of such situations to know when to use them or not. 

But I do agree with Bill. Male or female, I would not ear plug and eye shade up unless I had someone watching my back. No necessarily against rape and murder, but most likely pick pockets and theft. I spent a long freaking time and a lot of money on my bug out bag. I’m not having someone swipe it.

If you don’t have a family member or friend with you, try and sleep near a busy area like where they hand out food, or make friends with a member of staff who can keep an eye on you.

 

@Jay, my point wasn’t so much that it’s not smart to cover your eyes and plug your ears when nobody’s watching your gear as that I think it kind of goes without saying. 😉

 

Soooo I am thinking of what happened in the Arena in New Orleans. Collapsed roofs, rapes, robberies, theft, violence etc

It is the last desperate measure for a single person to enter such shelters on their own.

Disinfectant

Insecticide

Survival blanket

Fire arm/ PDW  on PERSON 24/7

Knife on PERSON 24/7

Extra clothes

EXTRA SCRIPT MEDICINES

Your own WEATHERPROOF sleeping bag

Your own crockery and cutlery

Rations.

Disposable personal hygiene kit for each family member

Flashlight(s) / spare batteries

AM /FM radio / spare batteries.

You operate from out of your BOB, you dont UNPACK IT, you take out what you need then replace it. Your BOB never leaves your side.

Your BOB stays with you in the dining queues, in the toilets, showers and allotted personal space.

You do not EVER surrender your stuff, if they try then LEAVE, The authorities disarmed and confiscated much personal property in NOLA only for those who were disarmed to end up as victims of violent crimes.

So if you are on your own,  if you need to go to the bathroom / showers YOUR BOB goes with you,

If you need a shower your BOB goes in a watrer proof trash bag IN THE SHOWER WITH YOU.

If you are a COUPLE or FAMILY,  every adult takes turns at staying awake on watch.

If any female family members needs the toilets / showers an armed relative accompanies them and looks after the BOBs.

No visible Bling, Jewelry, Watches etc

Vital personal DOCUMENTATION stays ON YOUR PERSON in a waterproof bag. YES even in the shower.

and dont trust strangers.

I agree with Bobs input, Travel vests are good, I keep an empty one in my GHB in which I transfer core essential items to from the bag when trouble brews.  That way I can still function if parted from the bag.

 

if you can find a single one of the personally posted SuperDome horror stories >> let me know – went looking years ago for the dozens & dozens that were internet available post-Katrina – alllllllllll gone – even the NOLA ones got deleted >>> only thing left were the Bush bashings 

one I remember well – a group of Brit tourists got dumped off there – they figured it was going to be a typical inconvenient GOV affair >>> the men landed up fighting off the animal rape gangs – white women of all ages were targeted – wasn’t safe to leave the main group for the whole time ….

 

Yup the unpolitically correct reports all appear to have magically disappeared including the sex attacks in the toilets.

 

Here’s another perspective, from one of the many people who has done careful work documenting human behavior after disasters and reviewing scholarship and historical records on same:

The image of the selfish, panicky or regressively savage human being in times of disaster has little truth to it. Decades of meticulous sociological research on behavior in disasters, from the bombings of World War II to floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and storms across the continent and around the world, have demonstrated this. But belief lags behind, and often the worst behavior in the wake of a calamity is on the part of those who believe that others will behave savagely and that they themselves are taking defensive measures against barbarism. From 1906 San Francisco to 2005 New Orleans, innocents have been killed by people who believed that their victims were the criminals and they themselves were the protectors of the shaken order. Belief matters.

– Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell

There’s nothing wrong with being cautious and aware of one’s surroundings, and I’m not advocating that anyone choose a public shelter over other places where they might feel more comfortable seeking refuge. (If you believe that other people are just murderers-in-waiting and that you can’t be safe in a high school gym without being armed, maybe it’s safer for everyone if you just hunker down at home?) But I think we should think twice about presenting public shelters— which are probably, for many people, the safest places to go and/ or the only options when their homes are destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by disaster— as rape-nests. Even if we decide that every debunked rumor about Superdome violence is actually true… part of the reason those stories were so shocking is that people have been using public buildings under the management of Red Cross, FEMA, local governments, churches, etc. as emergency shelters for decades and violence isn’t usually a part of how that all plays out. (I don’t even recall hearing reports of theft— which doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen, but again, not a major part of the narrative.) We can agree to disagree about Katrina and still find plenty of evidence that the danger of being hurt or killed in a public shelter post-disaster is pretty darn low…

 

Good evening PNW Sarah,

Rebecca Solnit is wrong. She only studied what is available in the public arena.

I also studied – and participated in emergency sheltering – … holding off on mentioning some censored examples….

In some national / Federal groups I’m known as “the parking lot guy”. Even had a short article mentioning this published in a national magazine for emergency prep.

Recommend read up on the “Blue” program – about human traffiking.  The traffickers are visible at shelter parking lots. Nice RVs are their real shelter. You’ll see the pre and early teen abductees go into the shelter typically to rest rooms.  They are alreay infected.

Others DO behave savagely.

Shelters are like pickpockets in Hong Kong.  It’s a routine evening for the criminals to make some money. … and they do.

I don’t call shelters “rape nests” but the kidnapped person won’t have a pleasant time in RV.

Don’t believe the pleasantries presented by author Rebecca Sodnit.

Shelters are the neck of a funnel.  Every category of evacuee preset – from the church-goers to the bikers to the innocents … all the rest.

Just decided to add something I hope is acceptable for TP.com.  Wait ’till author Rebecca Solnik learns about the racial antagnostisms.

“Been there – Done that”.  All else is academic pedantics.

 

Well, TP actually recommends A Paradise Built in Hell, and people like Solnit— and especially the disaster researchers deployed to calamities to collect firsthand accounts from research centers at universities— are professionals as much as a shelter manager or first responder or anyone running an EOC. The findings they make by methodically collecting data from multiple instances all over the world (including extensive interviews with witnesses and victims) deserve to be taken as seriously as the eyewitness accounts or allegations of any one other person acting in a professional disaster relief capacity.

Also, worth considering that these two groups of people have very different jobs: Those who work in disaster response are paid to anticipate threats and prevent them; in that role, it would be irresponsible not to take stories about worst cases seriously and attempt to see danger everywhere, before it befalls the unsuspecting folks who have already been victimized by one disaster. That’s part of why we need social scientists and other researchers to put those worst cases in perspective and point out the truths that can hide behind conventional wisdom and common assumptions. 

It’s also worth noting that we all come to this space with our own tools and skills for evaluating data and arguments. Just because we haven’t disclosed our experience and training doesn’t mean it’s absent or lesser. (Rebecca Solnit has also written about this, too. In a different book.)

 

Good morning PNW Sarah,

Solnik is still completely wrong.

Recommend read “The Politics of Disaster” by Marvin Olasky.

Deputy sheriffs do not readily provide firsthand accounts. Nor many others also; they are obliged to go through their PIO only. You must understand the function of a “JIC” – Joint Information Center.

If you add “all over the world” your position is refuted even more. Overseas witnesses and victims are “planted” to talk to researchers. Deviating from this requirement is not appropriate to post here. Only a few of us have lived and worked overseas. It’s not what you think.

So far the social scientists and other researchers have provided little of value for what they are paid and what it costs for their “research”.  See Allen Bloom’s book “The Closing of the American Mind”.

Conventional wisdom is having vital signs and a safe family at least after recovery.

Some tools work and most do not.  We still do not have a minimally adequate emergency sheltering plan.  The nation cannot even run a public health immunization program that works.

America’s middle class is ignorant, arragant and naive.

Sarah, I’m discussing subject matter.  You would always still be welcome at our shack and setup here on the Chesapeake Bay.

 

Sooooo please read this folks, especially Ladies and Individual preppers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_the_Louisiana_Superdome

 

Good evening Bill,

Just read the linked Wiki article.  It is a decent article.

I’ve studied and talked to responders who worked both New Orleans and Houston. Much is censored.

Too few … even starting out preppers … can grasp the significance of a group of assembled humans in the 20, 000 range.  The actuaries will tell how many have TB, routine respiratory ailments, annual flu infections,the pregnant, the alcoholics, the drug addicts – includes the church ladies with their sloe gin bottles, …

My posts here are sketchy at best and am usually writing what is cloudy. We are prohibited from going public with some material.  I do understand.

 

you should have a pop-up tent – more than one if your family takes up a bigger “cot area” in the shelter >>> you may or may not get a thumbs up for the tent depending on the public shelter type and who’s deciding what …

you should have one for use around your home – for winter grid-down they reduce your nitetime heat usage and some privacy …

a home yard emergency shelter – plenty of people have pitched a tent on their flooded home roof to keep a vigil …

 

Going back to original OP. @Nanb. 

This is something I ponder from time to time as I would be reliant on the powers that be to evacuate me if I was still in situ when disaster struck. I am a big believer in looking after myself and to that end, I would take advantage of any travel assistance offered but that is about as far as I would want to go. My own personal thoughts and plan is to get away from the initial danger. Stop for a while and then make my own way from the shelter to anywhere else outside the danger area.

To this end, I have have a list of hotels, rail stations, bus stations and taxi firms extending in a circular pattern from my home base. I also have a credit card with a healthy limit to pay for this as well as a stash of cash. I have no intention of staying in a community shelter unless it were a small local hall.

I would rather spend 24hrs travelling than 24hrs in a large unsupervised shelter. Just something to think about.

 

there are no such things as public shelters in the UK.

 

I think it also depends on the country and culture of the disaster. While there was some looting, when the quakes happened in the South Island, NZ none of those things happened in public shelters. Having said that, our lockdowns and fight against COVID has had a marked difference than other countries. Let’s face it, when the second lockdown hit,  the protests were laughable. However, the attitudes to those breaking lockdown have been harsh.

 

I think I’m with Jenny on this one.  I can’t imagine being in a shelter with 20000 other people that would be my living hell and I know for a fact that there are no buildings large enough to accommodate everyone in the nearest town. It’s been quite an eye opener to read through the local emergency planning guides – ‘everyone should have 3 days supply of food and water in their home’ – this seems a really bad assumption on the part of the emergency planners when this is something I have never seen promoted by local or national government.  It’s there but you would only find it if you were already looking for it.

To clarify, I’m not saying people shouldn’t have supplies on hand (or the common sense to work this out for themselves) but it seems odd to for the emergency planners to assume that the majority of people will! Maybe I’m just surrounded by really organised people and I don’t know it!

 

Good morning Sewknot,

There’s a major reason to recomend 3 days of food and water supplies – fully aware that this is an inadequate amount – .

So many people are enrolled in some form of welfare … eg food stamps, aid to children … that the governments at all the levels minimize the requirement. Otherwise the proper quantity of food and water becomes a major budget item.

I used to do volunteer work at our county emergency shelter.  Had stopped when it became a danger zone. Even LEOs consider shelters a bad assignment.

 

no public shelters where I live and I wouldnt use one anyway.

security and safety would be compromised.

 

Good morning Lonewolf,

There was a somewhat recent change in re shelters here at the former Lord Fairfax proprietary colony now known as Virginia.

Like you, I avoid the shelters as worst than sleeping outside on the curb during adverse weather.

Like your setup, here it’s similiar.  The big change is when an evacuation is ordered from the nearby large urban areas and the destination becomes this place.

This is why emergency sheltering is still a “concern” of mine.

 

Good afternoon, Bob, and others,

The only shelters in my area are old CD fallout shelters, but, then this is a semi rural area. Regarding weather issues, around here, most folks just sit tight and wait it out.

That is why I have an interest in this topic, I have no real frame of reference in this area. 20,000 people is just about 2/3 of my entire county’s population. I can’t imagine being in the same space with everyone in the county at the same time.

All the recommendations above certainly seem reasonable under that set of circumstances.

 

Here we tend to use school buildings, sports halls, concert halls, covered arenas, military barracks, college dorms, civic buildings etc for shelters, We tend not to suffer from things like Quakes or Hurricanes in the UK, just floods, ice storms, landslides, civil unrest and of course terrorism to contend with.

 

The latest flooding in the Scottish Borders and Cumbria where people are being evacuated to the very public buildings you mention Bill.

The River Teviot in the Scottish Borders has risen to dangerously high levels, forcing people into a leisure centre for the night

In these circumstances and with this sort of short term shelter in mind I add a caveat to my earlier post that I would take advantage of this kind of help if offered and needed.

 

Plenty of suitable locations for mass public shelters, BUT almost NO Civil defence supplies like camp beds, field kitchens, mobile showers, mobile toilets, mobile medical centers etc, and only volunteer 4×4 drivers to pull folks to safety. A small flood can be handled but if had a big event we would be in deep trouble.

 

Just to preface, I’m not really a big crowd kind of person, but nor am I a Rambo/Kosinski either. I can empathize with pnwSarah’s belief in most folks’ basic goodwill because I am one to offer help. But I have become increasingly concerned with the 24/7 undermining of any sense of common good, or even of Americans with anything in common. Violence today happens on a placid airliner; or a school board meeting of all places devolves into death threats and intimidation. People under pressure go off in unexpected directions and most are under daily pressure it seems.

In the US at least people are increasingly armed and increasingly feeling empowered and/or backed into desperate acts that just a decade ago would have seemed outrageous. Part of the prep mindset is to be aware of the “climate” and I feel that at this particular moment any type of gathering that attracts (or more particularly: forces) a broad spectrum of folks together has a potential for polarized clashes. This is as opposed to a more politically homogenous or “like-minded” group gathering.

Now, I don’t hide out or walk around in fear, I don’t carry a pistol, I don’t shun people or crowds (aside from CoVid precautions of course) and I still would stop to help someone on the side of the road. But what I don’t do is put myself in a position to be forced into a herd under unknown authority.

Our most likely local natural hazard would be tornado — we’re above any potential flooding. In the event of a slab wiper we have a basement shelter and supply of camping gear and we would become lawn campers, as mentioned by other folks. Obviously a fire could force us out but likely not into a shelter with a mass of people. In some other unexpected local or regional event we would bug out beyond its reach, I usually have 500-600 miles of fuel onboard and cash in hand.

I guess the rule of thumb would be: in order to avoid mass unrest and violence, avoid the mass.

 

“I guess the rule of thumb would be: in order to avoid mass unrest and violence, avoid the mass.”

So long as it avoids me and mine, but that is the crux of the problem, it isnt is it.

Places where normal civilised decent behaviour was once the norm ie the shops, the mall, school, college campus, church, planes, trains, even county shows, workplaces, town hall,  fayres, diners, office blocks, even on mainstreet USA / UK  that violence and agression is now found ever more often.

Where once stood an American or a Brit now stands a Republican / Tory in hostility to a Democrat / Socialist.  We are fragmenting into tribalism, black, brown, white, christian, jew, muslim, sikh etc.

Northerner , southerner, pro life v pro choice, pro climate change v anti climate change, pro gun  v anti gun, heck even pro policing and anti policing.  Gender and sexuality issues, free speech versus no platforming and censorship,  pro nuclear power versus anti nuclear, pro immigration v anti immigration. 

The divides were always there but until now we could respect and accept opinion contrary to our own, We could agree to disagee, that was how it USED to be.  Now your opponant is as likely to want you silenced, banned, expelled, evicted, prosecuted or even physically attacked for holding an opinion or belief that your opponant disagrees with.

We become afraid to question, challenge, disagree, object and even debate with each other. We in many cases live in fear of losing our jobs, homes, careers, income and family because if we say something an intolerent person objects to they can and will rain down hell upon you.

Whats the answer? I dont know but I do know it wont be MORE of what is already dividing us.  We dont need to look to the city gates to see the Barbarians approaching, because they are already here living among us and dividing us further into factions.

Is our current western society in terminal decline, I think YES.

To many people, not enough resources, not enough land, not enough jobs, Those of us who have worked long and hard to build a decent life for ourselves and our families are seeing all we worked for being taken away, destroyed or lost.

Failing and ever more expensive healthcare systems

Rising crime and failing social cohesion coupled to urban decay and mob anarchy.

Higher taxes, food and fuel prices mixed with stagnant wages coupled to ever poorer public services.

Critical water shortages in many areas be it US, Europe or Africa, Middle east and Australasia.  Desertification and deforestation spreading like wild fire. Some nations nearly at war with each other over access to fishing grounds or oil and gas supplies.

Then to top it all off those living in (formerly) wealthy westernised nations mainly in the northern Hemisphere are seeing and ever growing number of dispossessed migrants heading to our countries and all demanding food, jobs, healthcare, education, housing, transport, clothing, etc  And those former wealthy nations cannot even care for their own needy, homeless, hungry and unemployed.

“avoid the mass”   if only we could Sir.

I hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.