It is hard to know where to go when each person you manage to contact who is in traveling distance is in the same situation. We know some people who traveled to others out of state, one family down to Philly and one to either Delaware or Maryland, but I forget which. So, what people do then is they leave the shelter spots and the few spots in hotels with generators to those who are most in need: the elderly, the very sick, those with infants. I even know of one person who had the choice to share her hotel room with people in need or to leave so that those whose risk was so much greater could stay. Our area has very shallow soils over shale. The large trees in these townships wind up hopefully finding something to hold them (at best a crack in the shale but at worst a water main) and most grow roots outward rather than downward. That simply does not work in high winds. This location really needs to think more serious about trimming out the trees at the edge of woods that are too close to power lines and allowing only short varieties of trees to be planted at the edges of yards. Even then there are limits to what can be done. Neither precaution would have prevented the replacement need for the two large transformers which were trucked from IL each on a large flatbed truck about 12 hours before we got power back on here. Neither would have prevent some major wires from being tossed so much by unrelenting winds that they actually unravelled -- something a neighbor who was a power company emergency response expert before retirement had ever seen in his career. Our town is now down to level that can be better managed by emergency services: about 1,000 people without power which is about 4% of our town. Trees remain on roofs in most places because there simply is still more need to get to the more essential downed trees. The big ones over the road have been cut with the rest left in place, or -- as I did with one which had been only about a 12 or 15 foot tree -- the smaller ones have been lifted at one side and then rolled out of the road. We learned a lot in getting through this. Maybe people can take what we learned and use it along with the advice others give both on staying at home during such a situation and on evacuating in such a situation. Sukie (not a vet) Ferrets make the world a game. Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.miamiferret.org/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) A nation is as free as the least within it. [Posted in FML 7608]