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Live in New York City?  Vis­it­ing NYC this sum­mer?  Work in New York City?  Going into the City for din­ner, show, hap­py hour, etc.?Guess what, today we explore ways to get out of the city in the event of a SHTF, pri­or to road­blocks, mar­tial law, tun­nels being closed, etc.  Under­stand that if the SHTF in NYC, that the Port Author­i­ty Police and the NYC Police are well posi­tioned to be mobi­lized in such a way as to block the bridges and tun­nels.   In some cas­es tun­nels will be very dan­ger­ous to nav­i­gate, and bridges may be con­sid­ered tar­gets.  It’s all a crap shoot, hon­est­ly, how­ev­er.  

If you are think­ing you are going to walk though the Mid Town Tun­nel, Lin­coln Tun­nel, or Hol­land Tun­nel to get home if there is an emer­gency, you may be sad­ly mis­tak­en.  If you think you are going to walk through the path tun­nel to get to Jer­sey City, NJ or Hobo­ken, NJ, you may be sad­ly mis­tak­en.  Here is why… In an emer­gency, there may actu­al­ly be no elec­tric­i­ty, and it may be a black­out sit­u­a­tion.  If this is the case the pumps that cir­cu­late water away from the tun­nels may actu­al­ly flood.  I know for a fact there are back­up gen­er­a­tors, but who knows how often they are test­ed, and if there may or may not be some oth­er prob­lem with the sys­tem if it stops and has to restart… In fact in August 2007 the NYC sub­ways were not run­ning at all because the tran­sit sys­tem was flood­ed and dis­abled due to too much rain.  This eas­i­ly strand­ed hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple try­ing to com­mute to work.  This is not the first time this has hap­pened either.  I can remem­ber anoth­er time in 2005 when I was work­ing in the city as well that the sub­ways were shut down due to rain pri­or to rush hour.  This is just one exam­ple.  A small one, but one, none — the — less.

Dri­ving out of the city in a SHTF.  Hmmm… I have to believe the answer here is: prob­a­bly not going to hap­pen quick­ly…  Every­one that can get out by vehi­cle will call their garage to prep their car to leave.  It will be a mass exo­dus to the three tun­nels and sev­er­al bridges… I would sus­pect, that if traf­fic is let through the tun­nels in a SHTF, chances are it will be emer­gency (FEMA) and oth­er gov­ern­ment traf­fic, and it will have pri­or­i­ty.  If foot traf­fic is let through, you may be able to hoof it or bicy­cle your way through, assum­ing there are not wall to wall peo­ple try­ing to get through.  With the pop­u­la­tion of NYC dou­bling dai­ly because of com­muters com­ing to work every day, I have to believe bridges and tun­nels will be wall to wall peo­ple should foot traf­fic be allowed through.  The same goes for the fer­ry’s that go to Wehawken, NJ, Stat­en Island, and to the NJ Shore.  On 9/11 the city shut down the bridges and tun­nels to all traf­fic to all peo­ple.  I would sus­pect it would hap­pen again.

I have men­tioned in pre­vi­ous posts that I, at one time was look­ing at pos­si­bly get­ting an inflat­able raft and stor­ing it in a self stor­age unit with some gear to work my way across the Hud­son Riv­er.  What I had to real­ize was there were mul­ti­ple water ways I would need to cross, and there­fore would have to car­ry the raft sev­er­al miles with my Get Home Bag hop­ing I would not dam­age the raft.  This lim­it­ed the size of the raft I could use.  It would have to be small enough to be man­age­able yet large enough to get a 250 lb guy across the river(s) safe­ly.  Clear­ly not a per­fect plan…  Not to men­tion that in a SHTF, I am sure the NYPD and Coast Guard would be going up and down the riv­er non stop.  A dingy going across the riv­er might look pret­ty sus­pi­cious as well.  Again.  Not a per­fect plan.

I have talked quite a bit about get­ting the hell out as soon as pos­si­ble if you have the means and can.  There is lim­it­ed time being in “the city” to get out and get out safe­ly.  If it is a light sit­u­a­tion, you may want to bug in.  How­ev­er, if you are ambi­tious, have the preps in your BOB, you may want to head up town WAY uptown.  Lit­er­al­ly about 40 miles from the city to Bear Moun­tain Bridge if you are look­ing to get to NJ.  The George Wash­ing­ton Bridge is too much of a tar­get in a man made dis­as­ter sit­u­a­tion… Bear Moun­tain bridge will be less of a tar­get and a safer area to cross over.  If it is a man made dis­as­ter, the tun­nels could also be full of tox­ic gas or bio­log­i­cal agent(s).

Do you want a good rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what it will be like get­ting out of the city if there is an issue… Get in your car at Fri­day at 5:00 and go west or north.  Head to the Catskills or heat to the NJ shore, and make sure it is sum­mer time when you do it…  The NJ shore is 50 miles from me, and by leav­ing at the wrong time on a Fri­day evening or a Sat­ur­day morn­ing it has tak­en me 3 1/2 hours to go 50 miles.  Get­ting off the park­way to take the back roads routes won’t do much good either, because you will not be the first one with that idea.  Found that out first hand too… This would be con­sid­ered light traf­fic in a SHTF sit­u­a­tion… And for­get it, if there is an acci­dent block­ing the road dur­ing an SHTF Bug Out sce­nario…

Back in the day I was look­ing at a Zodi­ac raft pur­chas­ing a trolling motor, and using that to get across the river(s)…  Here is anoth­er link:  http://goo.gl/JZ6fm.

I have to believe the con­cerns are sim­i­lar whether you are in Chica­go, Los Ange­les, Las Vegas, etc.  How would you get out of your city?  If you have any oth­er ideas or ways of get­ting out of the New York City dur­ing or in a SHTF… Please com­ment.  It ben­e­fits every­one…