Hurricane Chasing Tours?

[Warren Faidley]

Unless you have the means and knowledge to carry a lot of extra fuel, you could be left stranded somewhere very unpleasant or deadly. I will go as far as saying that "acquiring" / saving fuel is a stand alone "art" during a hurricane. No power = no gas pumps in addition to fuel depletion. You can't (unless you are an idiot) store large quantities of fuel inside your vehicle. (I once saw a woman who had her two little kids sitting in a back seat with several milk cartons of gas, in addition to her smoking a cigarette). Most experienced hurricane chases know the techniques but don't openly share them to try and limit the number of people emulating the same techniques. Most experienced hurricane chasers will also disable any tracking software, to avoid the "Kling-on" Empire from crashing your secret location. On a fun note, I once had Geraldo Rivera call me for an interview during a Gulf Coast hurricane, but I refused to drive the 10 miles and back to the news station. When I finally got out of the strike zone, I had to drive over 100 miles to find gas. I made the station on vapors.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Warren’s post about gas is just another reason I wrote above that I find the logistics of hurricane chasing too much to wrap my head around... Then you have some people say it’s practical to find hotels and parking garages, and others saying they’ve been kicked out of both. Clearly it’s possible to chase a hurricane, as people on here have done successfully and safely. But starting with no experience, and getting any good at something you may only even have a chance to do once every few years, seems pretty much impossible to me. But I’m not taking it off my bucket list just yet...

 

[Jade Vajna]

Yeah I am aware of the risks.. Which is why I'm not going to just go at it alone. I know some experienced chasers so reaching out to them is probably my best bet.. It's just a matter of convincing them to let me tag along.. Haha. Thank you all for your input! ☺

 

[Bobby Little]

Jade, It looks like you have an early chase chance this week around New Orleans....party then play.

 

[Dan Robinson]

When it comes to parking garages, I generally go in only to hunker down shortly before landfall. This reduces the risk of getting kicked out, as any security personnel are usually long gone by then.

Gas is one of the biggest challenges as Warren pointed out. The containers definitely need to be kept outside of the vehicle, even the newer ones that have good seals. There are a lot of options to do this with various tailgate or roof racks, as well as special containers that are made for mounting. That all needs to be planned out and fitted long before the chase begins. Some chasers wrap the containers in tarp to hide them from looters, though
I have never done this as tarps don't last long in hurricane-force winds.

My personal hurricane chase spec is at least a tank and a half of extra fuel in containers. I don't like driving on the highway with my reserve containers full, so I usually stop to fill them up at the last place on the way to the coast where fuel is not in shortage (GasBuddy is helpful for this). I top off the tank at every opportunity thereafter, provided evacuations are complete and I'm not using fuel that residents would otherwise need. I plan and limit my movements before the storm to conserve fuel. I try to save all reserves for the trip out after the storm, though sometimes I've been forced to use some before then. So far, I've made it out of all intercepts with plenty of fuel to spare.

 

[JamesCaruso]

When it comes to parking garages, I generally go in only to hunker down shortly before landfall. This reduces the risk of getting kicked out, as any security personnel are usually long gone by then.

Dan, once the security personnel are gone, isn’t the garage likely to be closed? Not all garages are 24-hour access, many (most?) are designed with steel gates so that they can be closed after hours. I would think in a hurricane, once security personnel leave, they would bring down the gates behind them?

 

[Joe Cameron]

Dan, once the security personnel are gone, isn’t the garage likely to be closed? Not all garages are 24-hour access, many (most?) are designed with steel gates so that they can be closed after hours. I would think in a hurricane, once security personnel leave, they would bring down the gates behind them?

I would think that egress is always available. If power loss by manually lifting up the exit gate.
Can't see them putting a padlock on it.

Actually i can't see them locking down the gates.