“…nuclear attack,” the announcer says. Where? You listen, holding your breath as your heart races. “You are advised to remain indoors until further notice. Please stay tuned to the emergency broadcast system for further instructions. I repeat, this is the National…”
You are up and out of your seat. You grab your purse from the top of your desk and sprint down the hallway. Co-workers are milling about, their faces registering shock and disbelief. But there isn’t time to join them and try to make sense of the broadcast. You have one question, and you ask it of your boss as he exits the conference room. “Where was the attack?”
He continues walking towards the clutch of employees crowding near the receptionist’s desk, his expression unreadable. “Las Vegas. A suitcase bomb!” he replies, continuing his determined stride to the biggest concentration of employees, possibly to calm them, or to advise them, but you will never know because your goal is to make it to your son’s school before the roads are hopelessly gridlocked.
The elevators have gone to other floors and several crowding the bank of elevator’s are staring nervously at the uncooperative steel doors. You turn and follow the hallway to the stairwell and start down the stairs at a jog. The parking lot is seven stories down and the stairs are a blur as you take inventory of the situation. Las Vegas is 1,100 miles from Seattle. Your family has dogged the first bullet, but your getaway cabin is on Whidbey Island. Will the ferry be running? If it is, it runs to Whidbey every half-hour, so no time constraints there. But first, you will need to make the 35-mile drive to the Mukilteo Ferry. If luck isn’t with you, and the terminal is deserted when you arrive, you will need to make the 100-mile drive, some of it on narrow, secondary roads. Impossible! The roads will be choked with evacuees before you even reach your son’s school. Best to head home, and sort it out from there…
Your mind grasps for something positive to hold on to, something that holds more answers than questions and lands on the contents of your trunk; three overstuffed emergency backpacks and a couple of duffle bags filled with cooking supplies and camping gear. Your sigh of relief comes out in a huff of overworked lungs. And boots! Just last week you stuffed new hiking boots for everyone in the last available corner of the trunk. Even if the ferry isn’t running and it turns out your family will have to wait out the first wave of the backlash at home, your have MRE’s and water stored in the basement that will see you through. Your townhouse is nine miles away. If need be, you and your son will walk home, you tell yourself, as your pumps cut into the tops of your feet.
The parking lot is surprisingly full, nearly as full as this morning when you’d parked. A handful of people are walking to their cars and you recognize several co-workers. No one says a word. In fact, there is no noise at all. Even the birds are silent. Your peripheral vision catches the flash of metal moving towards you, and you dodge out of the way. The driver continues to tear out of the parking lot without glancing in your direction. They don’t get far. Cars on the arterial in front of the building aren’t moving and you are confronted with the first hurdle bridging the distance between you and your ten-year-old son.
Backing your car out of its spot, you head down the alleyway that spills onto a back street, away from the congestion. The neighborhood you travel is made up of desperately stacked 60’s-era apartments. The afternoon breeze carries through open windows into cramped living spaces as cooking smells waft through the air.
Residents are congregated here and there, gesturing in panic as if the coming devastation will go away so long as they stand near cars or on front lawns and voice their fears. You’re forced to navigate around hastily opened car doors on the narrow roadway as residents dump household goods and electronics into the backseats and trunks of their cars. They resemble busy ants whose nest has been disturbed; up worn stairs and back down to deposit more useless junk and it suddenly occurs to you most of these people will be a statistic if things get bad. How were TV’s, computers and Nintendo’s going to feed and shelter them? They wouldn’t!
You force yourself to tune out your thoughts: There is nothing you can do to change the outcome, not when your worst imaginings are being announced on the radio and you are still miles away from your son’s school.
It’s slow going, but the traffic is creeping forward a little at a time. You turn up the radio and a public service announcer is spilling out information, barely coming up for air. “Initial reports are the blast went off on the Las Vegas Strip. At this time the number of casualties has not been determined. You are advised to remain in your homes…” You turn off your radio, unable to hear more. Not until you’ve picked up your son. Your husband is clear across town—downtown, to be exact.
Pulling your cell phone from your purse, you scroll through the contact list to your son’s school and hit send. You never got around to asking the school what their emergency policy was. What if they are on lockdown? It might be…how can they put students on a bus when some would be arriving to empty homes while their parents are stuck in gridlock? Hopefully, someone would be manning the doors and allow you to enter to claim your son.
The cell phone gives you a fast busy signal and a tentacle of fear wraps around you like a cold shroud. You try again. This time the call is placed to your husband. He could have been away from the office and somehow beaten the worst of the traffic. With luck, he could be at the school now. You hit send and get another fast busy signal. It’s no good. The traffic slows to a stop. Horns blare and the cars ahead of you take to the shoulder of the road to go around a stalled car. They must have run out of gas, you decide. Every gas station you’ve passed had impossible lines of drivers waiting their turn at the pumps. You follow the drivers ahead of you and move to the shoulder to get around an old station wagon, your thoughts alternating between worry over whether you will be allowed inside the school, and relief that your basement shelves are ready for whatever lies ahead.
It takes 45 minutes to drive the seven miles to your son’s school and during that time you’ve attempted to reach the school and your husband dozens of times with no results. The parking lot is full, forcing you to snag a parking spot on the street. You frantically search for your husband’s car, but it isn’t there. The next few minutes rest upon a policy maker with the school district, you realize, as your hurried steps approach the front steps of the school.
* * * * *
The above scenario is but one in a long list of possibilities. A crisis could just as easily be the result of an earthquake, or a banking crash, throwing the already belabored nation into panic. No matter what the crisis, the extent of preparations and planning you invest in survival now will have a direct bearing on how drastic the impact of a crisis is on you and your loved ones.
Hit the Ground Running
Being as physically fit as possible will increase your chances of surviving a crisis. Assess your physical condition honestly. Do you believe you are capable of walking miles to safety if you had to, or would you cower for cover? If the answer is the latter, you can start making small improvements by walking a few blocks each day and increase your distance a little at a time. If your days are crammed with work and taking care of others once you arrive home, you might consider committing half of your lunch hour to walking. Keeping a stationary bicycle at home (but not using it as a clothes hanger!) or joining a gym are other possibilities. Perhaps swimming interests you. It doesn’t take a Herculean effort to gain back what may have been lost over the years and you might even discover you like the new you! You shouldn’t be expected to suffer alone with this, so snag a friend or a family member to join you—play the guilt card if that’s what it takes.
Your goal is simply to condition your body to accept the rigors of walking long distances. When your muscles are acclimated to physical activity, you will be less likely to seize up when placing sudden demands on your body.
If you have physical limitations that would make walking or hiking difficult
