Liv­ing in NJ is an expe­ri­ence unto itself.  Just ask any of my friends who live here that are trans­plants like me.  It is cer­tain­ly one of the most unique places I have ever been.  Peo­ple here just want to get from point A to point B when they are in the car.  You would think so they do based on how quick­ly the traf­fic pass­es you and how the peo­ple dri­ve.  It’s a place where traf­fic either moves at 80 MPH down Route 3 or it moves at 5 MPH or less due to traf­fic.  It’s rarely in between.  One thing is also a fact, New Jer­sey is the most dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed states in the coun­try based on the num­ber of square miles and the num­ber of state res­i­dents.  The bot­tom line, there’s just a lot of damn peo­ple on the road all the time.  It makes it hard to nav­i­gate your car on the road, and you most def­i­nite­ly need to remain vig­i­lant and acute­ly aware of the traf­fic and con­di­tions around you.  This is just dur­ing nor­mal con­di­tions, imag­ine for a moment rush hour; rather, going nowhere fast hour when cars are lined up for miles and miles and miles.  Ugh.  I used to dri­ve from North­ern NJ to Cen­tral NJ every day to go to work about 9 years ago.  I want­ed to shoot myself.  Hon­est­ly.  By the time I got to work or by the time I got home from work, I was men­tal­ly exhaust­ed just from the traf­fic, and the slow move­ment on the NJ Park­way.  I won­dered how peo­ple did it day after day for 30 years.  My point, how­ev­er, is that traf­fic was S… L… O… W…

Now, know­ing that traf­fic can be over­bear­ing at any giv­en time of day or night, and know­ing that seem­ing­ly for no rea­son at all the traf­fic you thought should be mov­ing at a nor­mal speed, is mov­ing at a snails pace, add an emer­gency to the mix.  Add an emer­gency that push­es peo­ple to the road to evac­u­ate their homes, offices, etc. and have to go west towards Penn­syl­va­nia or north towards New York State.  for those of you that do not know, there are only four main arter­ies that go towards Penn­syl­va­nia and only two or three main arter­ies that move towards New York State.  Some of which inter­sect which could make life dif­fi­cult.  In addi­tion there are only three main arter­ies that come from NYC to New Jer­sey fur­ther com­pound­ing the traf­fic and pan­ic ele­ment.

To give you some per­spec­tive, where I live in East­ern New Jer­sey, is only 7 miles from the Lin­coln Tun­nel.  If I decide to go to PA via Inter­state 80, with­out traf­fic, it can take 60 — 75 min­utes to the bor­der.  Add a hol­i­day week­end, and that 75 min­utes can be extend­ed to 120 — 180 min­utes as long as traf­fic is mov­ing slow­ly.  When it is mov­ing less than slow­ly, it has tak­en me three hours to three and a half hours to go 120 miles.  Sigh.  Typ­i­cal­ly I will use just over a 1/4 tank of gas with min­i­mal traf­fic.  With hol­i­day traf­fic I can use half a tank of gas.  Gas milage is expo­nen­tial­ly destroyed by idling in traf­fic.  That said, I have no doubt in my mind, in an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion with evac­u­a­tion under way, I have no doubt traf­fic will be stopped for what would seem to be an eter­ni­ty.  Addi­tion­al­ly, G‑d for­bid that there is an acci­dent dur­ing an evac­u­a­tion sit­u­a­tion and traf­fic is stopped for hours or indef­i­nite­ly.  Pan­ic, anger, stress, etc, would all ensue and atti­tudes would seem­ing­ly dete­ri­o­rate quick­ly.  I per­son­al­ly saw dete­ri­o­ra­tion of atti­tudes after last years hur­ri­cane with­in a 24 hour peri­od where peo­ple had no pow­er, run­ning water, refrig­er­a­tion, etc.  I can only imag­ine peo­ples atti­tudes stuck in a small car, let alone a home with no pow­er or resources.  Chaos would ensue.  I must believe that in any urban envi­ron­ment, a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion could be eas­i­ly replic­a­ble.

So, what are the imme­di­ate threats to get­ting to your Bug Out or Fall Back Loca­tions?  As I see it, Traf­fic is a real and present threat to get­ting to my and your des­ti­na­tion in an urban or sub­ur­ban envi­ron­ment.  Sec­ond to that is your fuel con­sump­tion.  Unless you have a back­up tank in your vehi­cle or ger­ry cans with you, fuel is a com­mod­i­ty you don’t want to fool with.  My sug­ges­tion is to always have close to a spare tank of gaso­line in stor­age.  I say this, with­out gaso­line stor­age of my own because of the apart­ment I live in.  I am cur­rent­ly mak­ing plans to store gaso­line at a friends or rent a garage about 1.5 miles from my apart­ment so that I can store gear, fuel, and preps there.  It is a pri­vate garage rent­ing a bay from a per­son rather than a busi­ness.  My ratio­nale is that if I were to rent a stor­age unit (gaso­line and flam­ma­bles are against the rules to store any­way) and have the place go into lock down dur­ing an emer­gency, I thought it might be smarter to rent it pri­vate­ly, and off the books and pay in cash…

Get­ting back on track, I rec­om­mend you have at least an extra FULL tank of gaso­line you can bring with you if you have to bug out to help elim­i­nate the threat of run­ning out of fuel pri­or to get­ting to your des­ti­na­tion.  Do what you have to in order to achieve this if you have bug out plans.  What you think could be a slight­ly stressed dri­ve on your gas tank can be much worse than you can imag­ine.

Back­track­ing for a moment, you should (and I am work­ing on this active­ly) work through dif­fer­ent bug out routes.  Try them at dif­fer­ent times of the day, week, year, hol­i­day sea­son, etc.  Get a feel for them, and if you have to doc­u­ment your tests in a jour­nal so that you can quick­ly ref­er­ence it if you need to pri­or to a Bug Out.  I have tried three of five pos­si­ble routes for myself.  I have done so, because I have trav­eled them each numer­ous times, and one may inter­sect with anoth­er either sim­pli­fy­ing or com­pli­cat­ing your route and sit­u­a­tion.  If you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to use back roads (the roads less trav­elled) don’t fool your­self, they too will be slow going, as well as con­gest­ed with peo­ple try­ing dif­fer­ent routes to try and hedge their bets.

Last­ly, the threat that has the high­est vari­able is the human ele­ment.  There is no telling when a frus­trat­ed evac­uee will get so upset he tries to push the guy in front of him, get out of his or her car and try to assault you or some­one else, etc.  There is no telling if some­one in that Ford Pin­to will try to ride up the side of the road and break down and is now in your way since you’ve decid­ed to do the same and you’re in your AWD Bug Out Vehi­cle (yes I am mak­ing an assump­tion).  There are many vari­ables.… Almost too many to count, and we have to take as many into account as we can the moment we decide to get on the road to Bug­ging Out.

The point here is to know your threats, and do an assess­ment to make the best deci­sion you can for you and your fam­i­ly.  Bug­ging Out at the right time is essen­tial…

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