BKA:
A comprehensive and insightful (deep understanding) piece on personal safety, covering perception, locational, geographic, faunal and technological implementation. Well done.
If RVers (whether boondocking, or group campers) would practice just 1, 2 or 3 of the gamut of written-about protocols, "they" could raise their level of personal safety immeasurably over practicing none of said. If I/we were to practice just a few personal safety measures in some form, situational awareness/local safety & environmental knowledge (TEK) would be right near the top.
If I may just offer my thoughts:
When we are out "on the road" with camper (or, backpacking, tenting and similar), I/we rank the *probabilities* of encountering hazardous situations, and the recent numbers published (as of this weekend) put encountering weather-related disasters at 3x (300% higher) higher than civil unrest (this includes crimes against persons), interestingly. A poignant reminder was C.Traveler's near fatal 2004 flash flood experience, at a Government-run camping facility near Grants New Mexico, where he writes that even the Government facility rangers had mis-read the campground's historical probability of catastrophic flooding, placing every camper at risk of a life-threatening natural occurrence. So, we use tools (LiDAR and other high-resolution digital terrain data, flood modeling software, etc) to give us some micro-geographic knowledge of where to and not to set up camp if: enormous, moderate and low short term precipitation should fall locally, and 10, 20, 40 miles distant. However, this s not an easy option for someone untrained in basic hydrology/overland flow concepts and GIS analytical systems.
As a reminder of the enormously increased probability of being caught up in a "weather disaster", one just has to look at the catastrophic rains that have devastated large areas the 4-Corners region of the "dry Southwest" over the past several weeks. Watching absolutely dry valley streams (dry arroyos) go from a trickle, to 1000, 1200, 2000 foot wide raging torrents, taking campers, houses and parts of several towns away was a real wake-up call. Camping 30 feet above and 200 feet away from the obvious crest marks of dry desert stream beds may not be nearly safe enough.
Not to minimize the other aspects of personal safety, we tune our radar according to probability of x, y, z disaster; some geographies may elevate z higher than y, and place it closer to x as we travel through the rural, suburban and city, or foreign landscapes, etc...and there are many subtleties mixes, where for example, a natural disaster will usually foster an environment of camaraderie for a short period, then, shortly thereafter degrading into social anarchy (site: Baja Sur over the past several weeks; the 2005 Katrina reaction), etc...
Readers: I suggest taking BKA's writings and creating a single sheet of paper (call it something like your personal safety protocol), and practicing it.
Cheers,
S-
