Sir:
In my role as “the good citizen” and amateur radio operator, I have just competed a state sponsored FEMA [1] “Incident Command System” class (IC-700). My worst concerns regarding bugging out from my coastal home in Connecticut were
confirmed at that class. Here in Connecticut we have no mass evacuation routes available or realistic plans in place to deal with a catastrophic scenario resulting in the exiting of the people who live in this area.
You see we already have quite an impressive rush hour traffic pattern which as gotten geometrically worse over the past 30 years. Back in 1976, the morning traffic heading to New York City (NYC) would be backed up starting about a half mile East of the
City of Stamford on I-95 (I-95 runs East-West in CT). Today, we (in CT) see traffic crawling through Bridgeport and stop and go from Westport down to Greenwich. This means that what would normally take 30 minutes to travel 25 miles now takes 90 minutes. And that is on a good day! All it takes is just one tractor-trailer accident to shut the highway down (or cripple it).
Now imagine a SHTF [2] situation causing people fleeing NYC, Metro NYC and Coastal Connecticut…
The gridlock would be spectacular. As they say in the coun