Hurricane bus

[Doc]

Hi,
This is only my second post to this fine (and very helpful) board, but I want to share my ideas regarding our new bus ('85 Ford B700, 8.2 Detroit, 5 spd.). I haven't seen anyone address this need on the board.
I have little interest in camping or doing much travelling in our bus, but DO have a need for a mobile abode! We live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, right in the heart of hurricane country, and have been through the evacuation drill many times.
Surviving a hurricane is easy and can be summed up in two words. Evacuate early. Surviving a hurricane in reasonable comfort and economy is a different thing altogether. Finding accomodation can be impossible when major urban areas evacuate. In '98, we evacuated for Hurricane George. We left a day-and-a-half before the City of New Orleans ordered evacuation. Still, traffic was bumper to bumper and there wasn't a motel or hotel room to be found for hundreds of miles. We wound up staying with friends in Birmingham, AL. The wife worked at a Ramada. She got on the computer and couldn't find any rooms available until one went past Atlanta, GA! After our recent brush with Hurricane Ivan, we returned to a neighborhood without power (we had inverters, but most neighbors were helpless).
Our "new" bus should solve these problems. Instant motel room on wheels. Other threads have discussed the difficulties of finding permanent skoolie parking at campgrounds. For us, this isn't a consideration. Virtually anywhere you buy fuel will let you park overnight. Our plan is little more than driving north 'til the danger has passed and turning right around and driving home.
Another advantage of our skoolie is that we can load it up with household valuables that we can't risk to wind and flooding damage. That's very important to us and the skoolie offers much more storage space potential than an RV.
Lastly, the major reason we decided to convert a skoolie is that few people consider what they'll do in the aftermath of a hurricane, should they return to utter destruction. Should our rural home be destroyed, we'll still have our land, well, septic, etc. Rather than live in a tent or FEMA shelter, the bus will give us modest-but-sufficient shelter, as well as power, AC, fridge, etc. during the rebuilding process.
We hope to see you on the road and who knows, we may wind up enjoying the bus so much that we end up doing a lot of travelling. For us, for now, we have our mobile hurricane shelter.

Best regards
Doc

[busone]

That sounds like a really good idea. I remember after one of the big hurricanes this past summer a few of the people on another board lived in their buses while fixing their houses. One guy had his bus in his shop and the shop blew apart around the bus and he and his family just waited the storm out in the bus. I guess if they can handle 80MPH winds going down the road they can handle a storm. The best part about a Skoolie is they sit up nice and high so you can drive over debris if needed. Really good idea

[Steve]

I remember watching something on TLC about a huge flood that occured someplace. There was a family out camping in their converted school bus and everyone else in the campsite had to get about the bus because it was the only vehicle that could drive through the flood water.

The guy said the water was above the bumper and he just put in first gear and had no problem driving everyone to safety.

[busone]

Ha I bet those stick and staple things just floated away like boats, until that is they hit a tree and broke into a million pieces.