Poisonous Gas Cloud Hits Oso Lago.
Loaded and ready to go. We are stopped at a gas station at this point.
On Thursday, April 1, 2010, at 4:00 pm I gathered the family together. It had been a busy day. I had taken the day off to do some work around the house. I began cleaning our back woods “dump” area. I’ve posted about that area before. It’s an area where the previous owners for decades had dumped bones from butchering what looks to be pigs, old appliances and other junk like mattresses. The kids had been busy playing hard with a dozen other neighbor kids. It was spring break for them and it had been gloriously warm for April 1st. So when a break appeared and all the neighbor kids went home for dinner, to check in, etc. I explained to the family that a poisonous cloud was heading our way on the prevailing winds. I told them we had 30 minutes to gather what we could and head for the hills. Literally. We would flee to the Allegheny National Forest and camp high among the “inland mountains” as the Erie news stations calls them.
April 1st. April Fool’s day. Was it a trick? No, it wasn’t. It was test/challenge/motivation to go on a quick camping trip. It was a dry run to see how we would react to unexpected news of an impending catastrophe. I am going to review what we experienced, what we forgot and what we successfully accomplished. This wasn’t a hardcore “bugout” on foot, etc. and it assumed a few things. I’ll detail those things. I wanted to keep it fun and exciting for my family also.
The Set-up:
There are a couple things you should know. These are the things that were assumed:
- We had enough warning that the Poisonous Gas cloud was on the way that we had 30 minutes to be rolling out the driveway.
- The Poisonous Gas Cloud (PGC) didn’t harm animals, so our animals were not a concern for this trip.
- The PGC would be cleared out without any long term ill effects within 24 hours.
- If we left within the 30 minute window, that would put us out ahead of the rest of the crowd and give us some cushion during the road trip to stop if we had to.
- We had 15 minutes that we could hit a store for last minute purchase.
- This was a localized event that we could move outside the sphere of it’s influence so the social fabric would still be fairly intact and infrastructure would be up.
Now, granted, the deal with being able to stop at the store might not be reasonable, but this was our first exercise and was for fun (mostly).
The Response:
Everyone stood there for a moment and looked at me as if to consider whether I was serious or if this was an April Fools joke. The first response of my 7-year-old Chloe was to burst into tears. I did take a moment for them to know that it was make believe, but here issue wasn’t with the Poisonous Gas Cloud. It was with the camping. In her memory, she has only went camping on our own land. Whoa, had it been that long since we hit the woods for primitive camping? The rest of the kids were excited. Amy was semi-excited and a little agitated. I had told her about 15 minutes before what I was contemplating. No one had prepared for this so it was going to be an interesting half hour. I figured the greatest stress and tension would be during this time.
So as the daze wore off, I started barking out things like: Take whatever you think we will need, bedding, clothes, food. Make sure the animals have extra food and water. Pack some firewood. I’ll get the trailer (a 4×8 utility trailer) hooked up. Ropes. Tarps. Hatchets. Saws. Chairs, we’ll need the camp chairs. I’m grabbing the extra (full-size) mattress from the boys room!
There was no list. We all started grabbing things we would need, or thought we would need. I had to keep the kids on task. The three younger ones got distracted easily but if directed they accomplished what they needed to. We loaded everything up. I had time to zip out some kindling size wood from here at the house with a circular saw.
More to come soon… but I have to get out and work on the garage.
