Hi Jim,
Love your web site! I live just on the outskirts of Apex, NC which is basically a suburb of Raleigh.One week ago, as you know, a hazmat processing facility there had a huge chlorine gas leak that led to a massive industrial fire with multiple explosions and leaks of all kinds of nasty-kill-you-dead-chemicals leaking into the air. 17,000 people were evacuated from Apex that evening. You can read the complete story here.
What I want to share with my fellow SurvivalBlog readers is how that thing that “will never happen here” happens and the very real need for a ready bag and a plan for when to use it. Here’s how it went down in Apex from my view. I was in a parking lot at a football game 5 miles away from Apex 11:30pm or so Friday night when I remarked to my friends about the lightning and thunder off in the distance. A few minutes later when all of my friend’s cell phones began to ring, we knew something was up- and it wasn’t a thunderstorm. All the wives talked about an evacuation of the town and chemical vapor plumes. At first, we thought someone was joking… but then, some had gotten a reverse-911 call telling them to evacuate the town, other’s heard public address (PA) loudspeakers from fire trucks. Some were just outside the evac zone and wondered what to do. Some panicked, packed the kids in the car and drove 60 miles away. All of my friends live in Apex, I’m just outside of town. We were in the post-game gridlock with 60,000 other fans and going nowhere fast. What I quickly became aware of was the various reactions of my friends. One was clearly in denial and kept making jokes; another just rationalized the impending rainy weather and assured us all it would wash away the plume and that everyone was safe. Another one just spoke quietly to his wife on the cell phone. It was a startling thing to observe. I casually asked them if any of them had a gas mask in the house their wives could use if they need ed to drive out in a hurry. They just looked at me with raised eyebrows…I’m sure they ever considered that thought. One said, “I’ll die with my family before I wear one of those!” I thought to myself, you know, you could likely drive them out of harms way with a mask on or, heaven forbid, have one for each of them! After we got out of the gridlock we drove to my place which was well outside the evac zone and better-yet, upwind. As we entered the garage I went over to the workbench and produced 2 chlorine gas rated respirators and said, here, take these, my full face mask is upstairs. You should have seen the stunned looks! They could not believe that I just walked into the garage and produced personal protective gear for them in under 10 seconds. I chose not to share with them the extent of my ability to deal with a variety of other situations. As it turned out, my friends stayed over and the wives sheltered in place as they were just 2/10 mile outside the evac zone. Not the heroic thing we wanted to do but the police had stopped all of the traffic and closed many roads into Apex. We were not going anywhere. As we drove back in today, each and every road into town had orange cones and a patrol car blocking any access. If you think there is no way the authorities could ever blockade your entire town, you are sadly mistaken. There were police from all over called in to help, fire crews from 50 miles away called in, and hazmat crews from other states on standby. It was the real deal yet it stemmed from a relatively small facility with only a few dozen employees. I’d hate to be unprepared and live downwind of a refinery or major chemical plant! It made me wonder about how we would fair if the nearby Nuke Plant had an evac order for all of Raleigh-Durham which approaches 1 million people in 4 counties. Or what would happen if a pandemic erupted in our town.
The most important take-aways I can share are these thoughts: We’ve had lot’s of brutal hurricanes here over that last 20 years, most of us here know the drill. But that is not the hazard to prepare for- it’s for the ones you don’t think of all the time that you need to consider, the ones that happen to “other people”, the ones that will “never happen here”, that’s what you should consider. Because, everything else, you can probably deal with already- you know, something goes bump in the night, duh, Annie get your gun! Really consider the “big ones” (for us, the Nuke Plant), pandemics, serious bio-terrorism, those are what you should give rational, considered thought to. Because, if you don’t, you will be subject to the whims of authorities and the masses. And no one will be happy with that. – Sig
The Apex, North Carolina Fire–My Story
