Mass evacuation from Mass. En masse.
Today's Herald examines Boston's plans for a mass evacuation event. The article is titled pithily, but helpfully:
Hub evac plan useless: Traffic jams mean `you're dead'.
Boston's reputation for horrible driving conditions- and horrible drivers- is nationally renowned. Before the Big Dig, getting in and out of the city was, depending on the time of day, either moderately dangerous or fecklessly lethal. Since the Dig was sort of mostly completed (only a few more billion to go- thanks every taxpayer in America!), the major arteries now are only extended clusterfucks.
Everyone who's been there has a tale to tell about their scrape with danger in Hub traffic. Many have been scraped by Hub traffic. It once took me 6 hours to get from Logan Airport to Northampton, which ought to be 2 hours even with a piss stop on the Turnpike. As it was, I spent about 4 hours just in a fucking tunnel trying to get away from the airport. Oh, and PS my wife was almost in Paris before I'd gone 100 miles. And that was after Bechtel was supposed to have made everyting all better.
As things stand now, one accident or a clutch of knuckleheads with picket signs can shut down traffic effectively. With a million knuckleheads clamoring to escape...well yeah, getting them out of town in a timely manner isn't going to happen.
Some of the excerpts from the plan though were pretty interesting, as vague as they are ambitious; read the whole article for those. Mayor Menino's spokesperson added, "an evacuation plan is a fluid entity'', which could only have been more unhelpful had Hizzoner said it for himself (in which case it would have come out as: "An evacalation plansa floo-oodatitty").
But like I said, the piece is helpful because it tells you plainly what's at stake. In the event of catastrophe, don't expect to drive out, and don't wait for the feds, the schoolbus fleet, or the municipal constabulary to pop in and pick you up.
If you want to live, you're going to have to ruck up and hump out.
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Damn straight, yo.
Damn straight, yo.
And where I live, on a scrawny neck of land on the rocky coast, it takes me 20 minutes on a good day to get the less than four miles to the "highway." In October traffic (leaf season and Halloween in Salem), that's more like an hour.
From there, where? Join the stream of rabble abandoning Boston on I 95/93/90, MA 2/3/128 US 1/1A? Join the four-lane clusterfark of MA 114 or 62 heading vaguely north and west away from my North Shore abode? Try my luck at winding back ways?
Good thing there's a wal-mart gun store to loot nearby.
J,
J,
Well, what I had in mind was advanced warning of a natural event, say 2-3 days. And don't waste time looting guns- have them already. At the very least, a pre-sharpened stick. Perhaps a cudgel.
You could try and drive out, and you might make it to Rt 128 by then. Or you could just walk, and cover 30-40 miles in the same time. Shit, someone as studly as you could do 60. Walking also has the advantage because cars are restricted to passable roads or at least, passable terrain. We can walk pretty much anywhere.
Now, if we're talking about 24 hours notice of a horrific event...not so sure. And something like an industrial accident/bio attack/chemical cloud would not make me want to go walking around outside.
Grabbing your ruck and a map and hightailing it is not a panacea. But ye Gods, it's certainly preferable to the poor sodden sods locked into a 200 mile long, 4-lane wide parking lot and crying about it.
Open the door, put your feet out, stand up, walk. Repeat as necessary or until dry. Ideally, they would have done this 3 days ago.
J,
J,
I've been thinking more about this.
If you had a character sheet of yourself, what would your Small Boat Handling (SBH) skill level be?
Because, it might make the most sense for you not to jack guns from the Walmart but a decent boat from the harbor.
Maybe not in the event of a hurricane or extended ice storm, of course, but there might be other contingencies wherein a good boat could get you someplace safe- up in NH or ME, say- way better than your car.
Dude, what?
Dude, what?
I don't have a character sheet of myself. Never thought about such a thing. Nuh-unh! No way, Jose!
...um, anyway.
I'm not so good with boats. I'm from Ohio! I never learned how to navigate large bodies of water, and my dad's name is Chainsaw so you better believe I never learned how to sail. Sailing in Ohio is what nancy-boys from Hudson do in their light pink v-necks and deck shoes.
However, two of the people I would make my escape from Massachusetts with are boating types, one a rigger on a tall ship and the other a maritime park ranger. So I think we might be able to manage.
And I know a good safe house up in Maine I could sail almost right up to.
Good idea, sir!
Just to be safe, my wife and
Just to be safe, my wife and I evacuated Massachusetts 15 years ago.