Mounted search and rescue

[Una Smith <una@lanl.gov>]

Celia Tamker <heavenonhorse@att.net> wrote:
>There is one highway going to the evacuation center that became a
>big parking lot.

In the vicinity of Macon, GA?  Isn't that a few hundred miles from
the coast?  My relations on the Georgia coast say that in advance
of Hurricane Floyd (which looked to be a Big One), all of Interstate
95 was a parking lot.  I-95 is normally a 15 minute drive, but in
the evacuation they took *many hours* to reach it, and once they
saw the gridlock (6 lanes of cars at a standstill, all crammed with
people) they decided to not even try to get on it.  My relations
also noticed many people were in a panic and seemed to have packed
no emergency supplies, only valuables.  The convenience stores sold
out of bottled water immediately, but many people didn't have enough
sense to fill empty containers with potable water from their taps.
The gridlock was so long that vehicles overheated or ran out of gas,
so even if there had been somewhere to go, many people could not
have gone there.

Do you have good communications statewide on SAR frequencies?  If
not, definitely look into HAM radio so you will have the skills to
deploy repeaters and use radios with a wider range than standard
SAR radios can offer.

        Una Smith
        Santa Fe County Sheriff's Posse, in New Mexico