Urban Escape from NYC/Irene

[Cockroach]

As foreward I have to thank all the crew here at Zombie Squad and ETS, with advice and guides from you guys I have been able to prep our family quite well over the last year. MODS please move this if I have the wrong sub-forum


Primary: CONFIRMED our home flood insurance claim and info contact number(s). Spoke with representative confirming they had our current info, policy is good order, etc.

Irene storm tracker indicated this would be one of the worse storms in NYC are for quite some time. We live in a built up urban town across on Hudson river across from NYC so there was some major concerns for extensive flooding, power outage coupled with water and food shartage.

Family and I assessed situation, plus with a proposed mandatory evacuation (became confirmed positive on Saturday)for people with dwelling at ground level-we made the decision to bug out on Friday. Our home is a very solid three story brick structure home in the center of town, they don't make 'em like this any more-however we are in low part of town which is considered a flood zone due to being on Hudson river and proximity to the NY harbor.

Arranged for several nights stay in Hilton's Homewood suites hotel apartment in Dover, NJ. Choice was based on 400 foot elevation in center of NJ. equidistant from the Delaware and Hudson rivers. Big plus was there are Family and friends in immediate vicinity

Prepped our ground floor living space for flooding/winds---took in plants ,put plywood on interior of the large non-storm picture window. We moved critical items to second floor.

I removed window AC from 3rd floor window, was rushing so busted AC frame a bit and got several mild cuts taking it out (ouch).

Assembled and tweaked my daughters', wife's and our bulldog's 72 hour go-bags. Tweaked and filled my 45L Osprey Exos backpack. Primary eqpt was water, water treatment, dry sacks, lighting, aux lighting,first aid, knives, temp shelter (tarp/plastic sheeting/contractors bags), quick prep food snacks and the JetBoil ZIP (very nice!). Pictures to follow in separate thread. Sig Sauer + ammo also came along--FYI NJ gun laws are draconian and complex, be careful when transporting weapons.

Tweaked my vehicles emergency storage bin (60 liter) food, water, shelter, first aid and cooking supplies
Re-assessed and repacked my vehicle's tool box.

Emptied most of our high cost freezer foods and refrigeration into two medium sized coolers

Packed our bags, 2 weeks worth of water and food, tools, and ourselves + dog into our 2010 Honda CRV.

I secure the main electrical service breaker.
In the event of major road cloggage I had my very detailed paper copy of NJ DeLorme available. We bugged out of NYC area at about 11 AM on Saturday Aug 27th.

Arrived our destination 2 hours later. We were expecting more traffic jams but there was little to no traffic and were able to use the major roads.

Checked in to a well appointed room, class A facilities--pool gym, free breakfast buffet. plenty of good stuff/shops in area. Shopped at mall which stayed open till 5 PM on Saturday.
Used our food preps at hotel.
Talked to loved ones, watched TV and the weather reports and slept a well earned good night sleep.

The suburban area we evacuated to had some heavy rains/wind but no power outage and it's mostly business as usual.

MY town it's otherwise. Friends and emergency reports indicate my neighborhood fared decently, no major damage, however several blocks away power lines are down and some 2+ foot floods in streets. Reported risk of electrocution for people/pet walking in the flooded portions of town.

The town is not permitting vehicular traffic as of 2 PM Sunday, so we will stay at hotel Sunday night. We plan to wake up early Monday and assess if we can drive back in and start up the house.

We both work in Manhattan but NYC mass transit is iffy so not sure about work on Monday. I can manage my local HVAC contractors via phone/blackberry if needed. The HVAC for most of the medical facilities and datacenters I am responsible for are connected via web base/POTS line building management systems. so I can at least monitor and control things somewhat.

We hope everyone here weathered the storm OK. We wish you have a safe and complete recovery from the Irene aftermath.

[HHaase]

IIRC, they have announced that the MTA will NOT be operating yet for the morning rush on Monday at all. Not sure about later in the day.

-Hans

[shrapnel]

Moved to Personal Experiences.

[jamoni]

That, my friend, is how it's done.

[run faster]

agreed, if Im ever in a similiar situation, I hope I can react in the same fashion.

In reality I'd probably run around like a maniac forgetting all the important things lol

[SiXiam]

We moved critical items to second floor.

Is this because you thought that you may have flooding, but ultimately believed that the house would still be there?
What would have made you move everything out of your house into some self-storage place; out of harms way?

Your experience of deciding to bug-out on a friday, but needing a day to get ready seems pretty typical. How could this be improved? Obviously bug-out gear & important documents should be in-place to quickly move, but what about everything else in a 'lived-in' home.


I ask because I'm still developing my own long-term plans, not to appear critical of what you did.

[Last Knight]

We moved critical items to second floor.

Is this because you thought that you may have flooding, but ultimately believed that the house would still be there?
What would have made you move everything out of your house into some self-storage place; out of harms way?

Your experience of deciding to bug-out on a friday, but needing a day to get ready seems pretty typical. How could this be improved? Obviously bug-out gear & important documents should be in-place to quickly move, but what about everything else in a 'lived-in' home.


I ask because I'm still developing my own long-term plans, not to appear critical of what you did.

They had the time, they used the time. I'm extrapolating here, but I get the feeling that, were it an immediate emergency, they would have been able to grab their gear and go. Having the leeway of preparation time, they used it to secure their house and bring along nonessentials (but usefuls) like the perishable food.They had the time, they used the time. I'm extrapolating here, but I get the feeling that, were it an immediate emergency, they would have been able to grab their gear and go. Having the leeway of preparation time, they used it to secure their house and bring along nonessentials (but usefuls) like the perishable food.

Things that might have made it go smoother; easier removal of the window AC units, possibly precut plywood for window securing. Looks like a lot of the time was spent reviewing the prepared BOBs and kits.

[jor-el]

Cut resistant gloves.

AC units have metal fins as part of the radiator array. The edges are razor sharp, as you've found out.

Also, when handling debris or moving through broken glass, it is prudent to keep your hands protected.

[Cockroach]

All thanks for the feedback and encouragement.
We are grateful we were fortunate and suffered no harm, unlike some others on the East Coast.


Here's summary of return.
Sunday, we dropped the kids off at my mother in-laws for a previously planned 4 day stay. There were no damages/floods in her town.
Based on isolated flooding in our hometown we decided to delay our return until Monday, especially as we already paid up for Sunday night stay. My work notified that our corporate offices were closed so no rush to be physically in office on monday.

Monday 9 AM we pack up with the dog and head out on Route 80. Heavy traffic due to closures on Rt 46 & 3. We monitor AM traffic radio and maneuver accordingly, get on NJ Turnpike and make our home town. Trip that normally take 45 minute took 2 1/4 hours..not too bad considering the amount of flooding in the counties we went by. Several smaller rivers we passed over/by were brown and swollen..
Wife takes Path subway to work , I set off for home to unpack and start-up house. There were several streets closed/flooded out but I finally made our cobblestone street OK. No flooding on our street. I am surprised as we are one of the lowest points in town. Guess the early 1900's builders of the brick house community knew what they were doing and picked good drainage ground? (our neighborhood houses were the towns original ship builders quarters) Gonna check with our civil engineering friend who's professor at local college to get her input.

Exterior survey from sidewalk showed no damage. I perform an interior house walk-thru with Nebo 200 lumen flashlight (nicely made, reasonably price Fenix alternative), absolutely no damage to windows, floors or roofs. Confirm there are no gas leaks via smell. (Online reports mentioned several homes in our towns had natural gas leaks, mostly from gas hot water heaters and heating boilers in basements)
I reset the main electric breaker and again walk-thru, all power is good.
Our electric /gas utility company had techs checking homes and one visited mine shortly after my return.

As I'm unloading the 2 weeks of food, water and baggage from the CRV I get mildly heckled as an 'alarmist' by one passer-by, I shrug it off. There will ALWAYS be trolls...

Several close neighbors report some flooding in their semi-finished basements. As we only have cinder filled crawl space it's a non issue for me.
I had brought all our potted plants in from the two decks and front sidewalk, the potted dwarf plum and dwarf apple trees I left out. They fared well with no damage and actually appeared invigorated by the storm/wind.
I am glad I put plastic sheeting down before I brought plants in. I watered them a bit before we left and some drained onto the sheeting.

I had emptied our fridge before we left--I hate dealing with chemistry experiments due to power outage. I take the empty warm fridge as an opportunity to do a thorough and clean down and disinfect it.

When I had put the plywood up behind the ground floor picture window I had used a combination of screws and 10d nails. The screws zip out great with my cordless drill. I could not find my cat's paw to get the nails out. the local hardware was out of them so decided to get the Stanley wonderbar. The Stanley turns out full of fail for pulling nails-I find out after 30 minutes of screwing around with it. I resort to my hammer and BFS (Big fricken screwdriver),15 year old klein BEEFY flat tip 20 inch long with 5/8" square shank . Thing is my go-to tool when all else fails.

Methodically I get the critical stuff from the second floor back down to first. Third floor I repair and re-install the AC. Over next several days I move the rest of the stuff and clean up.

In our absense, some mice made their presence known by shitting all over the kitchen countertop, even though we left no food out. I've confirm their route is through the stove and onto the countertop. I've bagged two so far with old school Victor mice snap traps baited with a bit of tasty hot dog.

I inventory what I bought in prep for storm, as I spent a considerable amount tweaking our go bags. Recent purchases like the Jetboil zip (mega win), Sea/summit dry bags and other assorted items I keep as I used and like em. I dont need the extra MSR dragonfly camp stove, black diamond lanterns, and several other impulse buys are going back to the local EMS store for refund.

Things we did right.
We expected the worse and hoped for the best
Confirmed flood and home insurance contacts and policy before hand. Made a 'practice and training' call to claims.
We got all our ducks in a row and did not panic.
We had sufficient preps.
We shut down and started the house correctly.
We evacuated based on our research and evalaution and as recommended by local authorities.
We picked proper location to bug out to rather than a state/local evac shelter.

Things we learned coulda done better:
I worked about 2 AM into Saturday morning finalizing house prep and our tweaking our stuff. With early warning of storm some things could have been done sooner, even though our final decision to leave was not made till Friday.
I threw approx $120 of food out, slightly larger cooler would have minimized the loss.
A mental thing, and probably every new gun owners worry. I was concerned traveling
with a weapon with my family, even though I did verything legal. Mostly afraid of leaving it behind somewhere or losing it.

Things I want to add shortly for our storm and general preps:
Lockable, secure storm shutters for ground floor windows on sidewalk side.
Inflatable Sevylor (had one as a teenager) or similar boat to fit family in worse case scenario.
Rooftop box for CRV. Anything that didn't get into cargo space got scrunched everything in with kids in back seat

Cut resistant gloves.

AC units have metal fins as part of the radiator array. The edges are razor sharp, as you've found out.

Excellent point, however I'm an HVAC mechanical Engineer and am around HVAC eqpt constantly. I used leather gloves so no cut's from fins, which you've pointed out are razor sharp. My problem was wearing short sleeve, failed to unscrew a bracket retainer and used force. Minor damage to the AC (repairable) and small cuts on my forearm, most damage was to my pride...

We moved critical items to second floor.

Is this because you thought that you may have flooding, but ultimately believed that the house would still be there?
What would have made you move everything out of your house into some self-storage place; out of harms way?

Your experience of deciding to bug-out on a friday, but needing a day to get ready seems pretty typical. How could this be improved? Obviously bug-out gear & important documents should be in-place to quickly move, but what about everything else in a 'lived-in' home.


I ask because I'm still developing my own long-term plans, not to appear critical of what you did.

They had the time, they used the time. I'm extrapolating here, but I get the feeling that, were it an immediate emergency, they would have been able to grab their gear and go. Having the leeway of preparation time, they used it to secure their house and bring along nonessentials (but usefuls) like the perishable food.They had the time, they used the time. I'm extrapolating here, but I get the feeling that, were it an immediate emergency, they would have been able to grab their gear and go. Having the leeway of preparation time, they used it to secure their house and bring along nonessentials (but usefuls) like the perishable food.

Things that might have made it go smoother; easier removal of the window AC units, possibly precut plywood for window securing. Looks like a lot of the time was spent reviewing the prepared BOBs and kits.

Last Knight, Excellent, spot on evalauation and explanation!

[Bearcat]

Good thread and a lot of great information. Just one question, why was the AC unit uninstalled? Because of high winds?

[Last Knight]

Last Knight, Excellent, spot on evalauation and explanation!

Thanks, mostly just basic reading comprehension. I thought you did a pretty good job describing the scene.

[prepper7]

Super AAR! These types of posts are really helpful.

<snip> In our absense, some mice made their presence known by shitting all over the kitchen countertop, even though we left no food out. I've confirm their route is through the stove and onto the countertop. I've bagged two so far with old school Victor mice snap traps baited with a bit of tasty hot dog. <snip>

Know what I got out of that paragraph?

"Mmm, hot dogs..."

I wish I were joking (and weren't salivating).

[Cockroach]

Good thread and a lot of great information. Just one question, why was the AC unit uninstalled? Because of high winds?

Thanks Bearcat,
Correct, we were concerned about the thing coming out and hitting someone. Even though it was screwed in and bracketed well...

[LowKey]

On this occasion you, sir, were full of win.
Please take some time over the next few days to thank and congratulate your wife, your children, and yourself for preparing for this sort of thing and for the almost perfect execution of your calm and orderly evacuation. It sounds like your whole family kept it together and everything went like clockwork.
Congratulations!

[Cockroach]

On this occasion you, sir, were full of win.
Please take some time over the next few days to thank and congratulate your wife, your children, and yourself for preparing for this sort of thing and for the almost perfect execution of your calm and orderly evacuation. It sounds like your whole family kept it together and everything went like clockwork.
Congratulations!

Lowkey, Thanks for the kind words. Yes the whole family was praised for their teamwork and effort. We were fortunate things went as smoothly as they did.