Dear Sir:
I believe I represent the younger group of your readers. I’m 28 years old, third year medical student. I have no wife, kids or major responsibilities beyond school at the moment. I have a Facebook account which I mainly use for socializing with classmates of friends back home. Also as a relatively young adult/student I enjoy the long summer vacations many of my contemporaries do not due to work or other obligations. However unlike many of my classmates and friends I was born and raised up to the age of 14 in the former Soviet Union and have seen social collapse at its best. That is the reason I look with a wary eye to the future.
This summer (mid July-mid August) my girlfriend and I flew to Spain and explored it the way many people our age do. We rented a car and drove close to 7,000 kilometers, all over the country. We slept in hostels with no hot water but plenty of bed bugs. We ate sandwiches on the go in order to save a buck. Most of the hostels we stayed in had little in the way of conveniences beyond a bed and a shower. The ones with a computer were a treat since it allowed us to check e-mail and allowed me to read the latest posts on your blog. Well August 3rd found us in Barcelona, one of Spain’s largest cities. Thankfully the hostel we were staying in was a decent one with a computer and internet access. While my girlfriend was in the bathroom doing whatever girls do there for an hour, I logged on SurvivalBlog to read the day’s post… and my heart dropped. The first paragraph on the page was your post about the possibility of a solar flare. There I am, a foreigner, barely able to communicate in Spanglish, 3,000 miles away from home with a girl to take care of and a possibility of re-living “One Second After”. After analyzing the situation I realized that the only chance I would have in case of something serious happening was to make it to the US embassy in Madrid, 600 kilometers away.
Traveling in a foreign country, I always kept the tank at least half full. Even with the diesel car we had that would not be enough even without factoring in the chaos that would most likely ensue. I drove to the nearest gas station a block away and to my surprise found old fashioned 20L jerry cans for sale. I filled the car and bought 2 jerry cans of diesel. Next was food and water. At the time Spain was very much like an oven with daytime temperatures reaching 44C (110 F). We always had couple of bottles of water in the car, but we needed more. Thankfully the supermarket nearby had a sale and I bought three 6-packs of 1.5L bottles. Food was less of a concern since we had plenty of snacks and canned food that we ate for lunch. My next stop was the bank. The ATM would only allow me to withdraw a maximum of 300 Euros per day. Thankfully I have two bank accounts, so with the cash I already had I was able to collect over $1,000. The only thing left to do was wait and hope.
Thankfully that solar flare turned out to be a non event and we were able to continue with our vacation in a car slightly overloaded with water and fuel. My girlfriend complained that there was not enough space for her things but I did not see that as a problem especially since we had another 2 weeks left and by then would use up all the supplies.
A little more than a week later we were traveling on the other side of Spain, taking a shortcut to get to the town of Guadalupe over some mountain passes. The road we were on was not on any map and was shown to us by a local who said it would save us a hour of time. It was slightly wider than a one lane road but it was designed for 2 way traffic. The road also had deep drainage ditches on both sides with no barriers and was snaking its way through the mountains so much that you could only see 2-3 car lengths ahead. To make a long story short, I sneezed at the wrong time and at dazzling speeds of 20 km/h drove into the ditch. The car was not damaged but it bottomed out and I couldn’t back up. At that point I had two choices: wait in 100-some degree heat until a somebody would drive by and ask them to pull me out or walk 10 km to the nearest village on the map and get help there. Since in the more than an hour that we drove on the road we had not seen an any cars, we decided to go with option 2. I grabbed a backpack with three bottles of water and we set out.
I was wearing comfortable hiking sandals. My girlfriend on the other hand was wearing something pretty and fashionable. By the middle of mile one going uphill and downhill time and time again she was in pain. Thankfully she had couple of band aids in her purse so she was able to continue, but just barely. It took us just over three hours walking in 105F degree heat to reach the 20-house village and ask somebody for help. By that time I barely had a quarter of a bottle of water left. An hour later our car was pulled out and we were on our way.
Lessons learned? Emergencies can happen anywhere and anytime. You cannot expect to know in advance when something will happen but have to be ready to react once it does. Having extra supplies doesn’t hurt either. We drank 4 liters of water because of the heat. How would we have dealt with the heat if I didn’t make that large water purchase a week before? We would have had a maximum of 2-3 bottles in the car which would not have been enough. My girlfriend hopefully learned that pretty and fashionable does not mean comfortable. I learned to keep a small first aid kit with me everywhere we go. As an added bonus in addition to the overall experience I ended up with twp brand new jerry cans which I brought back to US.
Thank you for all you are doing. – B.K.